2 posts tagged “thinking about things”

http://jacobmorse.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-would-orwell-do.html

This is in response to both "karen," "zach" and others...I can only assume that you are also products of this generation that I call my own--a generation that is completely drowned in and irreperably desensitized by this eruption of digital media and culture. (call me melodramatic but--please--just think for one millisecond). There are deeper questions at stake here that go beyond mere practical personal safety and the right to privacy. The real question is, people, is anything sacred anymore? Facebook is more than just a collection of pictures to share with friends, Karen, it is a symbol of the larger problems of our time, epitomizing the hyper-detached nature of every exchange we have ever known.

Why care if the CIA and a ba-gillion other people have access to our personal information? True, it may not directly affect you or your 200 friends from various universities and all their make-out shots, but the second you press "save" on the facebook, you stop becoming a real person, so to speak--what is in your head at that point becomes a consumer product and a weapon. And in case you were unaware: before cell phones and computers were perpetually strapped to our skulls, humans had some sort of sanctuary in their minds. They had the power, at any given moment, to be completely alone, completely safe, and free.

This sanctuary is lost for most. I know mine is gone. And the saddest and most frightening thing is: we are happily paying taxes for it to be beat even further into the ground, while "we the people" shackle our selves to this vulgar means of understanding and experiencing the world.

There's quite a bit to take issue with here, so I'll outline.

1) but the second you press "save" on the facebook, you stop becoming a real person, so to speak--what is in your head at that point becomes a consumer product and a weapon

2) And in case you were unaware: before cell phones and computers were perpetually strapped to our skulls, humans had some sort of sanctuary in their minds. They had the power, at any given moment, to be completely alone, completely safe, and free.

3) it is a symbol of the larger problems of our time, epitomizing the hyper-detached nature of every exchange we have ever known.

4) The real question is, people, is anything sacred anymore?

1) Ah. So because I put on the internet what media and art I enjoy listening to and digesting, I suddenly become a number in a database to sell "kids like me" products? Suddenly, I'm erased and what's left is a xeroxed copy of myself? Ha.

Now, if what you're attempting to say is that your ideas which you assume are just going to be circulated to whatever bored college students are reading this are going to be found and mined for information by data mining programs, then yes, I agree, that's absolutely true and so on and so forth. But to think that by putting yourself on a publicly available communication service that you're suddenly another tool of large companies who'se business it is to be "ahead of trends" or whatever the term is, or more of one, I think is unreasonable.

The aim of facebook appears to be a site that gives people a background on you and allows you the opportunity to put in contact information to a PUBLICLY AVAILABLE FORUM. For example, I don't wish to give out my phone number, AIM screen name or personal email on Facebook. There are people, however, who do, and believe that only college students will see that kind of information. That's an incorrect assumption. I don't mind, however, that that government or data mining companies know I like punk rock. I understand and respect some people's desire to live their lives as under the radar as possible.

2) Naive like woah.

3) I'd say you're in the right direction, but facebook ain't it. That's AIM, by the way. You can have conversations with multiple people and not see any of them. You can say things to them without having to see their reactions. You can be thousands of miles away and have a conversation.

That's good and bad, and that, I'd argue wraps up the hyper-detached, warp-speed culture that I believe you're describing.

4) No.