On the one hand you got the fact that "this is nothing new" (pointed out eagerly by, both, somethingier-than-thou folk, always looking to outflank the others' perspectives' implicit orientations, and those who cannot let go of their Bo Rama crushes, always looking for a way to say that this isn't his doing (god-love-'im, his hands are tied).
In a sense, they're both right. In another sense, we're all full of it. It is nothing new, but that doesn't make those still eating the cake to be not having any of it.
On the other hand (and to the first point, which I am more interested in than getting worked up over Bo Ramabot-ery), it is not only nothing new - as in the Loyalty Acts and all of their subsequently savory ACRONYMS, voted on or not - it's also of the very origin:
Everything, from the concept of jurisprudence to entire communication systems, was structured with defensive applications in mind, and The Net, specifically, a creation of the military wing of the defense industry.
Who's being protected? Have you ever had to be protected from the misdeeds of others? Have you ever felt a non-conceptual, direct relationship to that protection?
The extent to which one is likely to believe that an apparatus exists with his interest in mind is inversely proportional to the likelihood of his being crushed by that same apparatus.
People-mammals tend to appreciate not being crushed by something the sole purpose of which is crushing other people-mammals. You think Cheeta (of teevee Tarzan fame) worried about the fate of the gazelle being chased by his namesake? So it is with people.
But that doesn't mean cheetahs serve and protect chimpanzees.
The fact that public and private big-money bodies cooperate for more of the same big-dollar contracts, sharing information about friend and foe alike, is not a head-scratcher. Whether you choose to pay for their services or not, they are always going to seek more avenues of revenue, and at your greater expense if it crosses that path (other paths being those of anyone you count yourself lucky not to be).
Of course the broadest path of revenue is of the public variety, as it is inextricably linked to your willingness to pay up front with all your money, public or private.
Plus, there's a big benefit to being the last whose bill comes due.
Info is the same. I recall how, as a new customer of ComEd, if I didn't want them to sell my personal data to others, I was required to contact them in writing and explicitly tell them not to (though I believe it's officially known as a request). So the default setting for the telecom business is to be able to earn additional money off of their customers unencumbered. The lesson here is that the impetus for your protection lies with you foremost.
Wuddawegonnado!11!??
Sure, there's not much of a shortage of the expression of wariness of The Social Network and its sister-technology potentially exposing individual privacy, but wuddayagonnado when all of our friends' faces live in these mobile devices?
Sure the source of the government coffer flows so freely to industrially weaponized predator- animals & machines and generates an income so free from private expense that it would make an investment banker blush if he hadn't already invested, or if he had a conscience. But wuddayagonnado? Tax evasion is illegal.
Sure, bigbad bank-hate is en voguer than ever. But wuddayagonnado? People aren't paid anymore, account numbers are (cash not being enough to bring us all together*).
The underlying reason, I believe, that people don't respond well to the idea of a society without a central currency completely out of their control is that they are more comfortable with their class relationships being defined via authoritarian buffer.
Whaddayagonnado? Que sara, sara.
*I wonder about the ghetto-present Check Cashing Place's survival, and attribute it to an ultra-local ecology not of the 'hood's witting creation, the frequency of the liquor store on the opposite corner notwithstaggering. Slums have an economy seemingly independent of the shame-buffer of direct deposit.
While bike placards are nothing new, painting a two-wheeler tire-to-bell white is not traditionally a memorial to the victims of a kebab shop.
Grünbergerstr. Berlin 2013
Consumers unite! Whatever that means.
Consumer Collective, Josef-Orlopp-Straße, Berlin-Lichtenberg 2013
In a sense, they're both right. In another sense, we're all full of it. It is nothing new, but that doesn't make those still eating the cake to be not having any of it.
On the other hand (and to the first point, which I am more interested in than getting worked up over Bo Ramabot-ery), it is not only nothing new - as in the Loyalty Acts and all of their subsequently savory ACRONYMS, voted on or not - it's also of the very origin:
Everything, from the concept of jurisprudence to entire communication systems, was structured with defensive applications in mind, and The Net, specifically, a creation of the military wing of the defense industry.
Who's being protected? Have you ever had to be protected from the misdeeds of others? Have you ever felt a non-conceptual, direct relationship to that protection?
The extent to which one is likely to believe that an apparatus exists with his interest in mind is inversely proportional to the likelihood of his being crushed by that same apparatus.
People-mammals tend to appreciate not being crushed by something the sole purpose of which is crushing other people-mammals. You think Cheeta (of teevee Tarzan fame) worried about the fate of the gazelle being chased by his namesake? So it is with people.
But that doesn't mean cheetahs serve and protect chimpanzees.
The fact that public and private big-money bodies cooperate for more of the same big-dollar contracts, sharing information about friend and foe alike, is not a head-scratcher. Whether you choose to pay for their services or not, they are always going to seek more avenues of revenue, and at your greater expense if it crosses that path (other paths being those of anyone you count yourself lucky not to be).
Of course the broadest path of revenue is of the public variety, as it is inextricably linked to your willingness to pay up front with all your money, public or private.
Plus, there's a big benefit to being the last whose bill comes due.
Info is the same. I recall how, as a new customer of ComEd, if I didn't want them to sell my personal data to others, I was required to contact them in writing and explicitly tell them not to (though I believe it's officially known as a request). So the default setting for the telecom business is to be able to earn additional money off of their customers unencumbered. The lesson here is that the impetus for your protection lies with you foremost.
Wuddawegonnado!11!??
Sure, there's not much of a shortage of the expression of wariness of The Social Network and its sister-technology potentially exposing individual privacy, but wuddayagonnado when all of our friends' faces live in these mobile devices?
Sure the source of the government coffer flows so freely to industrially weaponized predator- animals & machines and generates an income so free from private expense that it would make an investment banker blush if he hadn't already invested, or if he had a conscience. But wuddayagonnado? Tax evasion is illegal.
Sure, bigbad bank-hate is en voguer than ever. But wuddayagonnado? People aren't paid anymore, account numbers are (cash not being enough to bring us all together*).
The underlying reason, I believe, that people don't respond well to the idea of a society without a central currency completely out of their control is that they are more comfortable with their class relationships being defined via authoritarian buffer.
Whaddayagonnado? Que sara, sara.
*I wonder about the ghetto-present Check Cashing Place's survival, and attribute it to an ultra-local ecology not of the 'hood's witting creation, the frequency of the liquor store on the opposite corner notwithstaggering. Slums have an economy seemingly independent of the shame-buffer of direct deposit.
_____
While bike placards are nothing new, painting a two-wheeler tire-to-bell white is not traditionally a memorial to the victims of a kebab shop.
Grünbergerstr. Berlin 2013Consumers unite! Whatever that means.
Consumer Collective, Josef-Orlopp-Straße, Berlin-Lichtenberg 2013
