Luddite Department: The Eve of Destruction - Facebook and Google attack

Facebook seems to be the latest target of the forces of reaction against technology. Every advancement produces a backlash induced by fear of radical change.

The Luddites were a movement begun @ 1812 against the advent of mechanical looms, which were seen as a disastrous example of the Industrial Revolution’s destruction of society’s stability. The mechanical loom, an invention which used a precursor of computer technology, eliminated the need for skilled textile workers. Cheaper unskilled labor replaced the more expensive workers.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, experts consistently predict doom as each new invention emerged. Civilization was threatened by the telephone, automobile, radio, motion pictures, television, the computer, cell phones, the internet.


On one hand, it is possible that the Luddites were right all along. After all, many economists predict that high unemployment is likely to be chronic, the old high paying skilled labor jobs permanently disappeared, replaced if at all by low paying service industry jobs.


And scanning the L.A. Times today, I ran across no less than four items that raise the “uh-oh” about Facebook, Google, and the internet:


Item #1. Page A20: MAN ACCUSED OF STALKING STUDENTS ON FACEBOOK.
A man who worked as a chef in Florida is accused of cyber-stalking and (I love this term) “attempted video voyeurism”. Wanting to see pix of naked girls and apparently too cheap to pay for a porn site, this doofus (allegedly) used various fake female names, claiming to be an alum of sororities of several southern universities to contact co-eds and demand that they send naked photos or else he (pretending to be she) would do nasty things to her. Using knowledge of intimate facts acquired through Facebook, the culprit convinced some girls that compliance was necessary.

Item #2. Page A22: NO FACEBOOK: IT’S A LOAD OFF.
Harrisburg (Pa.) University conducted an experiment. Students gave up social networking, including Facebook and Twitter, for one week. Survey said: 25% reported better concentration in class, and that lectures and seminars were “more interesting”. 33% claimed that the hiatus from the impulse toward networking reduced their stress level.

Item #3. Page B3. GOOGLE’S STREET VIEW DATA IS BEING SOUGHT.
The attorney general of Connecticut has subpoenaed Google’s records. Google has apparently admitted that it “inadvertently” “collected and stored data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks taken by cars that take photos for its Street View mapping service”. The AG demands the “consumer data” that was collected by this mistake for which Google has apologized.

Item #4. Page B3. POT FARM IS THRIVING ON FACEBOOK.
1.5 million users pay to play the Pot Farm game online. Facebook reportedly “made Pot Farm pull a hookah pipe from the game.”


Luddites beware.

Top 100 worries: revised

We used to play a game of listing our top 100 worries. In the beginning, this was reassuring, because by the time we got to number 30 or so, asteroid collisions, locust invasions, and other concerns filled out our lists.
In 1980, we had a child, pushing asteroids down to the high 90's. That was almost 29 years ago. The child is now an independent man. This has reduced the number of my worries, but has not eliminated them. I’ve found it to be true that a parent eventually loses all control over the outcome of a child’s life, but never loses the sense of high anxiety about it.
My anxiety level has fluctuated wildly since he moved to Portland to attend Reed College and majored in Art history. This, I feared, might not lead to the secure (read prosperous) life I wished for him. When, after graduation, he stayed in Portland, formed an Indie Pop band with high school chums, worked as a waiter in a dessert shop, and spent seemingly huge chunks of energy on his laptop computer making and disseminating music, creating art, blogging, and other activities that didn’t fit my definition of "productive" (that is, producing income), my worry list occasionally expanded beyond 100.

As he explains, his interest in creating and disseminating his music led him to create websites which required that he learn and master computing languages, particularly "Rails" on which he has lectured at several conferences. This interest led him to try his hand at physical computing, writing programs that make bells ring and mixes drinks (at last, something useful).
Now, something has happened that has alleviated many of my worries. Greg was recently accepted into the NYU ITP a two year post graduate program focusing on interactive telecommunications.
Turns out there is an entire area of study on the cutting edge that synthesizes many of Greg’s interests. His apparently meandering journey seems to have found a guidepost.

I see now that whether this will lead to "security" as defined by my paper chase generation is very much beside the point. Peace of mind is far more likely through allowing one’s interests to lead wherever they lead. The artificial clocks that ticked so urgently to my generation have been abandoned. While my own winds down, with midnight approaching, I can at least check off items from my list.

Now I have to find new worries to fill out the top 100. Wait, Greg will be in New York for two years ... uh, where’s my list?

Woes is me

A friend who knows me well chuckles about the black cloud that accompanies my life like a pet tarantula.

I have been in a computer generated coma for 4 days this week.

My hard disk crashed suddenly in the resulting storm, destroying forever about 20 gigs of data: settings, photos, music, case files of every sort, and the hopes and dreams of the last two years of my life.

None is recoverable and so I have to start fresh, as a virgin moving to a new town.

I spent the last day trying to get back online and reconstruct bookmarks, remember usernames, passwords, sites ...

The precious gem of Time is frittering away...