Kingsley Idehen asked why debates over semantic technologies are always zero-sum games?
I understood him to be asking about RDF vs. Topic Maps but the question could be applied to any two semantic technologies, including RDF vs. his Data 3.0 (a Manifesto for Platform Agnostic Structured Data) Update 1.
This isn’t a new problem but in fact is a very old one.
To take Kingsley’s OR seriously means a user may choose a semantic technology other than mine. Which means it may as well, or at all, with my software. (vendor interest) More importantly, given the lack of commercial interest in semantic technologies, it is a different way of viewing the world. That is, it is different from my way of viewing the world.
That is the linchpin that explains both the zero-sum nature of the debates over upper ontologies to the actual application of semantic technologies.
We prefer our view of the world to that of others.
Note that I said we. Not some of us, not part of the time, not some particular group or class, or any other possible distinction. Everyone, all the time.
That fact, everyone’s preference for their view of the world, underlies the semantic, cultural, linguistic diversity that we encounter day to day. It is a diversity that has persisted, as far as is known, throughout recorded history. There are no known periods without that diversity.
To advocate anyone adopt another view of the world, a view other than their own, even only Kingsley’s OR, means they have a different view than before. That is by definition, a zero-sum game. Either the previous view prevails, or it doesn’t.
I prefer mapping strategies (note I did not say a particular mapping strategy) because it enables diverse views to continue as is and to put the burden of that mapping on those who wish to have additional views.