P. T. Ong's reaction to the Seventh Law:
One quick first reaction to Kim Cameron‘s recently posted Seventh “Law” of Identity — it's too long.7. Harmonious Contextual Autonomy: The unifying identity metasystem MUST facilitate negotiation between relying party and user of the specific identity and its associated encoding such that the unifying system presents a harmonious technical and human interface while permitting the autonomy of identity in different contexts.
Kim: You need to cut the number of words in half. It's a 41 word sentence!
Do you need to open the window, as Jamie said?
This might seem a frivolous reaction, but it is my experience that fundamental stuff can be expressed simply. If it is difficult to express simply, then it is probably not fundamental … and thus, shouldn't be a “law” or a principle. It should be broken down to it's component ideas.I read #7 several times, and I still am having problems trying to understand it. I suspect the problem is not with the language but with the complexity of the idea.
You are totally right. I need to simplify this. Craig Burton has made the same point. I'm squeezing too hard.
As I said when writing the seventh law, the totalizing effect of the other six is that “the head explodes”. But we should be shielding the reader from this.