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Elsie N
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Privacy isn't always about reputation nor even about tracking for advertising purposes. In today's world it is probably more important financially, i.e safeguarding one's identity.
Jason Sinclair
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I think the major fear to privacy is if a rogue government gets in and can command that information or governments who propose that they believe in free speech but have sinister spy organisations which during times of upheavals have the power and will to go against free speech and shut it down covertly.
I suppose it's what you don't say to get caught in the data trap which counts while still maintaining your absolute right to freedom of expression.
I suppose it's what you don't say to get caught in the data trap which counts while still maintaining your absolute right to freedom of expression.
Governments should be the least of your concerns, because governments don't control the world or your life. Corporations do, and have for many years. It's nice to shout about things like "freedom of expression" and it goes over well with the right wing crowd, but it's very, very naive. The world - especially the western world - is run by financial entities, not so-called "lawmakers" (who basically work for the financial entities anyway).
I think it might be time to watch the movie "Network" again......
Bill Anderson
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Amen to that, Mr. Most.
Mike 'Fireman' Ross
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Balls, in part.
Two words.
Open source.
Heck, even open-source textbooks these days. The changes have hardly started; wait until the generation you castigate gets its teeth into the potential. Biggest thing for civilization since Gutenberg invented the printing press. Key skills will be Search Engine 101, and discriminating wheat from chaff.
Mike
Brent J. Craig
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If I told you I could introduce you to someone who knows one out of every five people in the world. Put him in a room with 100 people and he knows 20 of them. He knows what they like, where they are, who their friends are, what they might be shopping for, where they work, who is in their family, when they are happy or sad, etc..
That is what Facebook is. The one influential 'entity' that knows everybody. This is valuable.
Of course there is backlash against Facebook now that everyone has made billions of dollars and the stock marketers try to figure out how to grab a piece of it. And Facebook is certainly poorly-managed with no idea of how properly monetize this information. They currently only make $5 a year from each member.
Now that Facebook is rolling in money, they will mature, hire some grown-ups and become a force to be reckoned with. Mark my words.
(Yes, I am down 32% on my Facebook shares, why do you ask?
That is what Facebook is. The one influential 'entity' that knows everybody. This is valuable.
Of course there is backlash against Facebook now that everyone has made billions of dollars and the stock marketers try to figure out how to grab a piece of it. And Facebook is certainly poorly-managed with no idea of how properly monetize this information. They currently only make $5 a year from each member.
Now that Facebook is rolling in money, they will mature, hire some grown-ups and become a force to be reckoned with. Mark my words.
(Yes, I am down 32% on my Facebook shares, why do you ask?
Morning Glory
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One of the best movies I studied in Media Criticism in high school, a course way ahead of it's time and should be mandatory for all children alongside English. Both languages should be understood in depth. Back then it seemed like a fair extrapolation. Watched it again last year, seems like a documentary now.
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Jeff Kilgroe
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brett ogden
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Jason Sinclair
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Man what country do you live in? I would be starting a revolution if i had to put up with that.... or finding another country to live in. Because governments set the rules by which corporations abide by.... They also police laws for the protection of their citizens and in a democracy you would hope... you would hope that people are voting in people who are working for their best interests. I suppose Adolph Hitler got voted in so people can also be collectively stupid.
Peter Moretti
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Please Jim, just don't post "I hate kittens." I can't bear the thought of all the little kitties named Scarlet, Epic, RedCine-X, etc. suddenly being tossed to the curbside.
I live in the Real World. Because unless you happen to be in Cuba, a few countries in Africa, or possibly Afghanistan, what I said still stands.
Tom Lowe
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Okay, enough of the political talk. Mike, you know that's going to open a can of worms. It's a very complicated subject, and this is not the place for it.
Getting back to the subject, when FB stock debuted, it was valued with a price-to-earnings multiple of over 100! Where is the upside to that?? All I can see is mainly a big downside... which is exactly what's happening. Investors would have to believe that FB was headed for a market cap of like a trillion dollars in order to make big profits. The whole thing makes no sense at all. It's not logical. It's not rational.
Getting back to the subject, when FB stock debuted, it was valued with a price-to-earnings multiple of over 100! Where is the upside to that?? All I can see is mainly a big downside... which is exactly what's happening. Investors would have to believe that FB was headed for a market cap of like a trillion dollars in order to make big profits. The whole thing makes no sense at all. It's not logical. It's not rational.
Gavin Greenwalt
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Open source is a fantastic way to clone existing tools badly or create exceptionally technical tools. It's failed miserably at creating products for non-programmers and I suspect it always will.
Any time you have someone developing tools for their own personal use it's going to be solving problems that *they* want solved. But the world is largely composed of problems that can only be solved by experts who have no vested interest in solving it. You aren't going to have something like Avid or Premiere developed by Open Source. And before you say 'Lightworks' that was developed as a closed source product and then released with Open Source. Great products take vision, direction and a commitment to do really boring and unexciting shit to make things better.
I release essentially everything I write as open source since I have no intent to monetize 99% of what I write. In that case other people can help me make it better so there is value for me and for them. But if I spend a couple months and it's user friendly enough for commercialization you can guarantee that I will commercialize it not open source it.
Wikipedia isn't really anything new. The Old English Dictionary, one of the greatest lexical resources in the world was the creation of people in the 19th century mailing in little note cards with references they found in their reading for words. They crowd sourced the etymology of the English language before we even had the Telephone. But ultimately the best projects are almost always the product of someone with a vision and a customer with a cheque.
As to "Privacy is important because of identity theft." Wrong conclusion. Because privacy is all but impossible in the modern world, we shouldn't place so much of our value in such insecure means of identification as where we were born or even what our SS# is.
Elsie N
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Markets = Rational? In my mind that is a given non-sequitur. To wit: this article from Investopedia suggesting that market irrationality has been a long standing problem.
By Andrew Beattie
When: 1634-1637
Where: Holland
The amount the market declined from peak to bottom: This number is difficult to calculate, but, we can tell you that at the peak of the market, a person could trade a single tulip for an entire estate, and, at the bottom, one tulip was the price of a common onion.
Synopsis: In 1593 tulips were brought from Turkey and introduced to the Dutch. The novelty of the new flower made it widely sought after and therefore fairly pricey. After a time, the tulips contracted a non-fatal virus known as mosaic, which didn't kill the tulip population but altered them causing "flames" of color to appear upon the petals. The color patterns came in a wide variety, increasing the rarity of an already unique flower. Thus, tulips, which were already selling at a premium, began to rise in price according to how their virus alterations were valued, or desired. Everyone began to deal in bulbs, essentially speculating on the tulip market, which was believed to have no limits.
The true bulb buyers (the garden centers of the past) began to fill up inventories for the growing season, depleting the supply further and increasing scarcity and demand. Soon, prices were rising so fast and high that people were trading their land, life savings, and anything else they could liquidate to get more tulip bulbs. Many Dutch persisted in believing they would sell their hoard to hapless and unenlightened foreigners, thereby reaping enormous profits. Somehow, the originally overpriced tulips enjoyed a twenty-fold increase in value - in one month!
Needless to say, the prices were not an accurate reflection of the value of a tulip bulb. As it happens in many speculative bubbles, some prudent people decided to sell and crystallize their profits. A domino effect of progressively lower and lower prices took place as everyone tried to sell while not many were buying. The price began to dive, causing people to panic and sell regardless of losses.
Dealers refused to honor contracts and people began to realize they traded their homes for a piece of greenery; panic and pandemonium were prevalent throughout the land. The government attempted to step in and halt the crash by offering to honor contracts at 10% of the face value, but then the market plunged even lower, making such restitution impossible. No one emerged unscathed from the crash. Even the people who had locked in their profit by getting out early suffered under the following depression.
The effects of the tulip craze left the Dutch very hesitant about speculative investments for quite some time. Investors now can know that it is better to stop and smell the flowers than to stake your future upon one.
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Agreed. Feel free to delete the postings regarding that subject.
It wasn't logical or rational when it happened the first time, back in the 90's. But it made a number of people very rich, and even though reality has since set in, there are always those who will chase the promise of quick bucks. Besides, as I think someone else said, stock markets are rarely rational or logical.
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Hrvoje Simic
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This type of reasoning could be perceived strictly within the subjectively chosen context of respected authors, in which it displays good intent and a goal of reducing negativity. In a much wider context however, the context related to a state of society, the attitude displayed, shaped through this type of reasoning, sadly is analogous...
to Dolly.
Authors are irrelevant and it would be unjust to put them on the spot. These conclusions can be easily re-checked with a different choice of premises. Quotes are a mere example of same or similar reasoning often seen throughout the society in a wide intelectual and cultural spectrum, the society which, judging by the past, could have learned something by now on many occasions, but its memory still seems as short-termed and it continues to repeat the same thing over and over again.
Placidity and compliance towards any entities unknown and unclear, using covert actions with hidden intentions in affecting own life…either with blindly granted access to information about own possessions, habbits or strivings, or through surrendered rights and freedoms by accepting imposed “Acts”…or through any other means seen, or in the works...enable and lead to significant missuse.
As they always did.
All actions imposed yet poorly self-justified by pre-analyzed interests precisely met, and pre-cooked dish accordingly served...and again the same compliance which allowed chain of events that led to a current state of civilization.
With new links of the chain awaiting.
It would be wise to re-consider both the cause and repercussions of such reasoning and habits.
Thinking whether the landscape is really improving, or just the stickers on the bubble are getting nicer.
Taking time to go back re-checking the steps, and to think few steps ahead as well.
While playing with a newest rattle served.
It would be wise to think deeply about the new generations, way before handing over the world to them, because current choices will affect the world they will live in. Ignoring is easier, as wrong choices often are, but any being with a gift of reason carries a responsibility of using its awareness for shaping the best world possible before leaving it behind, or faces repercussions for failing to do so.
History has blatantly displayed that the same placidity and compliance within masses, combined with superficial trivialization of cause and effect, were often greatly misused by those who were put above those masses, in a manner constantly evolving yet consistent in malice, and whether this will remain the case greatly depends on whether the lessons are learned, and which type of reasoning prevails within the current generation.
If this type does, the loop continues. In that case, greater part of new generations won’t be privileged with sufficient capacity and freedoms to use the knowledge and lessons currently at hand, because their capacity and freedoms will be greatly limited, conditioned by the very same type of entities to which their ancestors foolishly handed over the access and power in the first place.
...
Dolly notices the watchdog and doesn’t care. Goes where led to regardless.
Clueless where she came from, why, and where she’s headed to.
Unable to comprehend the meat grinder, so not seeing one even while looking at it.
Dolly has an excuse.
http://www.prairieswine.com/pdf/2985.pdf
http://www.animalbehavior.org/ABSAppliedBehavior/what-is-applied-animal-behavior-1
Elsie N
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Gavin, it's not necessarily the wealth you have, it is the wealth another can obtain using your identity. Generally all they need is your address and your SS number.
Andrew M.
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Tulip bulbs being swapped for fantastical prices until a terrible price collapse in February, 1637, allegedly caused by a sailor mistakenly eating a hugely-priced tulip bulb after confusing it with an onion.
The cries of distress resounded everywhere, and each man accused his neighbour. The few who had enriched themselves by selling their bulbs when the market was at its height hid their wealth or invested it in the English or other markets. Many who, for a brief season, had emerged from the humbler walks of life, were cast back into their original obscurity. Noble families were ruined and large merchants were reduced almost to the level of beggars.
The cries of distress resounded everywhere, and each man accused his neighbour. The few who had enriched themselves by selling their bulbs when the market was at its height hid their wealth or invested it in the English or other markets. Many who, for a brief season, had emerged from the humbler walks of life, were cast back into their original obscurity. Noble families were ruined and large merchants were reduced almost to the level of beggars.