when degrees become kinds

The other week I suggested that we sometimes hear something that seems fresh, but familiar and falsely assume we knew it already. This, from the much-publicised Clay Shirky pretty much explains what I was trying to say. Excuse my crude paraphrasing to alter the context of his point about 'sharing':

"Philosophers sometimes make a distinction between a difference in degree (more of the same) and a difference in kind (something new). What we are witnessing [...] is a difference in the degree of [articulation] so large it becomes a difference in kind."