What’s this “we,” Kemosabe?

Posted By Ing on January 12, 2010

I came across an article on TechCrunch about the furor over Facebook’s privacy changes, and the title drew me in: OK You Luddites, Time to Chill Out on Facebook Over Privacy.

And since I’ve been one of the many complaining about Facebook’s push toward publicizing everyone’s information to everyone, I figured I’d give it a read.

THE GIST OF THE ARTICLE

TechCrunch says our collective privacy is already long gone, and there’s no point in fussing about it now.

And they have a good point.

They say privacy was raped long ago by the credit card companies and their partners in crime, the credit reporting bureaus. The analogy seems apt. Like virginity, it seems that general privacy is  something we can’t get back once lost.

And (sad as it is) TechCrunch pegged me when they said very few will stop using Facebook simply because it has less privacy than it once did; I’d like to ditch the place, but what with one thing and another it seems necessary to me (for now) to stay.

You really would have to be a Luddite — literally live in a cave somewhere — to avoid having everything you do, everything you buy, everywhere you go tracked and stored in a database somewhere for someone to use in some moneymaking enterprise or other.

Much as I’d like to strike back against the all-encompassing avarice of this world, I’m afraid I just don’t have it in me.

Besides, even living in a cave wouldn’t work. If you ever left it, you’d still be tracked by the system to the exact extent that you interacted with the rest of society (say, if you visited the local library every once in a while to blog about what it’s like living in a cave).

WHEREIN BLOG ING AND TECHCRUNCH PART WAYS

Their closing argument:

The point is, we don’t really care about privacy anymore. And Facebook is just giving us exactly what we want.

Uh…no.

I realize TechCrunch is basically an opinion outlet, and they’re overstating their “yeah, so what, join the new century” case for effect. In fact, I wish I could make myself believe their whole article is tongue-in-cheek…but somehow I can’t.

So pardon me (and read along) while my inner idealist and English major both go stark, staring, raving mad.

First…

Their closing argument is an impossible generalization.

I don’t know about all the other people in their vast collective “we” — reality TV and the trend of internet activity indicate that I’m probably in the minority — but I do care about my privacy. As in KEEPING it. What little of it I can, anyway.

Second…

“We don’t really care” is a non sequitur.

“Nobody cares, we secretly like it that way, and it just doesn’t matter,” does not necessarily follow from “privacy is dead.”

And finally…

There’s a red herring here, too.

Don’t be thrown off the scent: some people being okay with less (or zero) privacy has nothing to do with whether lack of choice in our privacy levels is okay.  We may already have lost most of our privacy, but does that mean we all actually want to lose more of it?

You want to parade every datum in your life like some street-corner information whore hoping someone will take your profile for a ride? You can if you want, I guess. Me, I’d rather not.

If privacy ever did matter — if even the idea of it matters — then it still matters, even if it’s dead in practical terms.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Challenge issued. Goal met.

Posted By Ing on December 26, 2009

A short post to advert you to the fact that — as evidenced on my 50 for 09 page — I took up the challenge of reading 50 books in the year 2009, and met the goal. Surpassed it, actually.

I could have (and probably should have) read a lot more than the 57 books I’ve counted so far. I go through phases where I may read more or less than average, but as a general rule I read a lot. Finishing 50 books in one year wasn’t difficult.

There were a few times when the 50-book milestone helped remind me to pick up another book, but there were just as many times when I went a good 2 weeks without starting a new one. There were also times when I consumed a handful of average-length novels in a single week (and times when I didn’t keep track very well; I’m sure there are at least a couple of books I forgot to put into my list).

Maybe I can tack on one more in the next 4 days.

But for now I’m content to bask in my own smugness. I read good. An’ I read a lots.

Maybe it’s because I don’t do a whole lot else (I mean, some people actually write books; that’s probably a higher calling, and definitely a higher skill, than simply reading them). Maybe it’s because I’m addicted, and I have to read ever-increasing amounts to make my brain feel good (at work it’s part of my job to read, and sometimes I ignore other parts of my job to do the reading parts, and then follow up that reading with even more reading of my own, and when I’m not reading novels I’m devouring the contents of the Internets, page by page, site by site).

But if reading is an addiction, I’m fine with it. In fact, if I can think of any way I’d like to go when Deity calls me home, it’d be with a good book open in my hand (and rock music rattling the windows).

Maybe next year I’ll shoot for 75.

"A shadow, a poor player upon the stage..."