(no subject)

[gandhicrushkill]

According to USA Today, SUP is at the forefront of sociology. Our demands for privacy are not only outmoded and outdated, they are not socially beneficial.

I don't like this society. Can I please have interstellar travel now so I can go elsewhere?

Comments

[gehayi]

Now, if we only HAD everyday, ordinary space travel...

[jhumor]

**Facepalms**

Right, shared this with a "friend" the reply:
---------------------------
Friend: Hmm. It might help lower inhibitions. Which isn't a bad thing, really.
No offense, your country needs to loosen up. So does mine. But not like Sweden loosened up. That's just crazy. 

Me: wait... you AGREE with the article?

Friend: I don't particularly think it's a big deal. These things come in, they go out. Inhibitions rise, inhibitions falls.

Me: Huh... well that explains a lot... I'm getting too old for this
------------------

No really, I'm thinking I'm in a different generation. Maybe even a different planet.

[jhumor]

:D

Also, I'm secretly waiting for the TARDIS to show up on my front lawn and take me away. But that would be for a different thread :P

[destinyislands]

That would be a dream come true. But yes, that would be for a different thread. XD

[gandhicrushkill]

I remember in the early 90s, Doonesbury had a Sunday cartoon with "NO RADIO IN CAR" signs you could clip out & use. the Urban one was "NO RADIO IN CAR! Did you ever think about maybe getting a job? Doing something useful with your life?" Suburban was "RADIO IN CAR!" BIG sucker, too!" & then went out to list the elements in it, adding "Eat your heart out, sucker!"

The rural one was "RADIO IN CAR? Maybe there is, maybe there ain't. I'm not tellin'. Leastways I see it, it ain't none of your damn business anyway."

ETA: Oh wait. I found the actual text. Here it is, urban, suburban, & rural:


Attention Criminals: No Radio In Car
Yeah, that's right. There's no radio in here. Go look somewhere else, you theiving hoodlum. Have you ever thought about getting a job, you punk? Have a nice day. :)

Attention Strangers: Radio In Car
A real nice radio too. Multiple CDs, megawatt speakers too. Cost a fortune. Eat your heart out!

Attention Strangers: Radio In Car?
Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. The way I see it, it isn't any of your business.

[ravensson]

I'm thinking people in charge would LOVE for the masses to be that paranoid. Paranoid people are easy to control. Dictatorships have been using that tactic for a very long time. Hell, that's what Animal Farm, 1984, and Fatherland were all about. Thinking for yourself is dangerous. You start to get ideas. Better to believe what Big Brother and the Thought Police tell you to believe.

[ravensson]

I know I am. Someone didn't get the memo that I was supposed to have been born 20 years earlier. I walk around now like "Wait a minute, why are you texting me when we both have cellphones and you can just call? Isn't that why you made me GET a cellphone?"

[jhumor]

Ugh YES!

It's odd. When I was little I was told that I was "Born Thirty"... And now? I don't know, I just feel OLD in general.

I look at classmates from HS who were NEVER interested in computers and now? they are WAY more 'plugged in' than I am: texting, FB, Twitter, etc.

tongue firmly in cheek

[tangent_woman]

Loss of privacy isn't a bug. It's a feature!

Like climate change, it's a Good Thing(TM) if only people look at the positives instead of being sane being all backwards, negative, nay saying killjoys.

Because nobody who has ever been oppressed or persecuted or stalked has any right to online communication and interaction.

Anyone who would prefer that their ex didn't know where they live (when they finally get out on parole) shouldn't expect to ever be able to put their address in a private online networking service and expect that the privacy undertakings will be complied with.

and who would like to discuss their upcoming camping trip online only with people they trust not to burgle their house while they are away, ... well they are jut being silly and paranoid!

[destinyislands]

/sighs

What's sad is that it works.

[ravensson]

Yep. What's sad is that even Fahrenheit 451 is coming true. They aren't burning the books, though. They're digitizing them, making them into convenient little travel sized bits that slowly but surely are never getting read again.

Hell, when Twilight came out, I was happy. Thrilled. It got my younger cousin, who hadn't read a book in YEARS, to read the entire series.

[destinyislands]

/hides books

They can't them away! :<

I can't stand reading ebooks. And it's just not the same as having a physical copy. Nothing beats the smell of an old, well-loved book.

;;

[ravensson]

I agree! (*cough* That's why I have a bookshelf full, and boxes full, and drawers full...I think more of my room is devoted to books than clothes)

[destinyislands]

books=love.

[blackmare]

I don't think the oversharing thing is a good idea, really, but I do think things are starting to swing the other direction (look at the Diaspora project someone linked here for a great example). I feel that the DW migration is part of that movement, and that it will only grow. A lot of us have already had enough of Facebook Nation.

Also, I feel compelled to point out that while I have no love whatsoever for what SUP has decided to do to LJ (which is why I'm here and not there), SUP is not Russia any more than Facebook is America.

And it's our homegrown American Facebook that will tell everyone how to find everyone else, but won't tell the cops who your stalker is.

What I find truly egregious about the "TMI is A-OK" tone of that article? Is their utter omission of the way corporations use social media to track and control their employees, and base hiring and firing decisions upon what we say online. Perhaps they left that out because it just wasn't possible to put a happy spin on it.

*sigh*

I'll still think long and hard about that spaceship, particularly if it's rectangular, blue, and dimensionally transcendental.

[primsong]

Wait, wait - I'll go with you! What planet are we headed for again?

[highways]

I don't really think this article has much to do with, like, the privacy issues with LJ at all -- it's just commenting on how our natural human tendencies tie into sites like Facebook and Twitter. They aren't saying you have to share all your private information or that you have to take in other people's private information, or that either should happen against your will. They saying it's becoming increasingly common in our society, which is true. I don't really see how that relates to SUP violating its own TOS; it's not like it's saying that private companies making money off of personal information is beneficial to society.

Actually this part struck me as really interesting: "There is an idea in social psychology that you can talk about intimate things to strangers because they are not part of your network and are not considered to be a risk. If you're actually in public and clearly don't know people, it's almost seen as a private space."

[angstytimelord]

Crap like this almost makes me GLAD that I live at the ass end of nowhere & don't get out much.

[destinyislands]

"There is an idea in social psychology that you can talk about intimate things to strangers because they are not part of your network and are not considered to be a risk. If you're actually in public and clearly don't know people, it's almost seen as a private space."

I personally tend to feel more self-conscious about whatever I'm doing, even if I know no one around me will get what I'm doing/talking about. When I want privacy, I move myself away from the big crowd of unknown.

Though, IDK, maybe I'm not in the average when it comes to that?

I think the poster was commenting on how the article seems to suggest oversharing is a good thing/privacy isn't important anymore, and for a lot of people, the privacy issue was why they were leaving LJ. Well, among other reasons.

[denisia]

For a year and a half, I lived in a small town where everyone was in everyone else's business. Interestingly enough, it didn't result in a safer, more compassionate or more helpful community. It resulted in a place where everyone knew that everyone else was sniping about their activities behind their back, and that was about it.

I think right now we're dealing with a generation who has grown up being online, with social networking, and they're so accustomed to putting themselves out there that they don't see the downside of it. They don't think it's dangerous and they don't see the privacy implications because, hey, when they were 10 they had AOL and could do a little profile with their account and they've been on MySpace for years and now they're on Facebook and nothing's happened, and everyone in their class is there too, and everyone posts those photos of that time they stripped to their skivvies and danced on the bar. Their schools have class lists online and their sports teams have a Facebook page. It's become the new normal. So it leaves those who do see the larger picture looking like paranoid tin-foil hat loons.

[denisia]

Sorry, I was trying to reply to the original post, I didn't mean to seem like I was arguing with you!

[highways]

And *gasp* Big Brother is still Russian.

:/ can we not

[dizzyellie]

I think Americans are hilariously Victorian sometimes. Witness the old-but-still-valid example of Janet Jackson's breast being exposed during the Superbowl. The entire country got the vapors and had to collapse on a fainting couch.

So yeah, I do think we can be uptight sometimes.

However, while I had no issue with Janet's breast, that doesn't mean I want to show everyone my breasts. We need to get over our pearl-clutching, but eliminating privacy is not the answer. I think it would actually increase our inhibitions, allowing some to feel superior to anyone who doesn't line up with our ideas of Normal, to rank them in ways that never occurred to us. Knowing private facts about people doesn't tell us more about those people, it just gives us something justify our snap judgments and dismissals. "I read on Lisa's FB that she's bipolar. No wonder she's such a moody bitch!" So anyone living in some way outside of the "norm" will be have even more reason not to want it out there.

And once society accepts privacy is passe, anyone who resists this notion will be looked upon as someone with something to hide and not to be trusted. Hello McCarthyism!

Anyway, privacy loss won't loosen us up. It will turn us into witch-hunters.

[queenofspades]

If there wasn't any eavesdropping, if people minded their own business and ignored what they saw and heard, how would you prevent and how would you solve crimes?

Wow. Just. Wow. Really?

Homeboy must have gotten his degree at Costco, 'cause, no.

[jhumor]

Yup, and the trouble is? There really is no such thing as "normal." Not really. We all have our quirks that "deviate from the norm."

Having a "public persona" and a "private persona" is actually quite normal: Actors, news anchors, etc. do it all the time. Just because I'm not "famous" to a lot of people outside of my "circle of influence" doesn't mean that I want everyone in my circle to know that my 'public persona' is me.

There's a fine line that must be drawn.