CNN has an article entitled “The Internet and the ‘End of Privacy'” which has some interesting facts, raising interesting points, but does not really go to the bottom of the issue. Louis Gray has an article that shows how transparency works to his benefit. 

It struck me that the persons who stand to gain most from total transparency are those who are the best suited for their societies. The willingness to share the significant details of their lives provides them with the opportunity to prove this suitedness, and therefore can serve as an asset when applying for a job, finding a partner, running for office, or whatever. The more social networking sites succeed in prizing information about ourselves into the open, the greater will be the tendency to base selections on people who are both well within the radar of the internet and have a clean track record (within the parameters that companies, potential partners, acceptance committees and others may set). 

Eric Schmidt’s much-quoted remark from last December that “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place” epitomizes well the limited imagination of those who are in charge of the social networking tools we use. Since we still live in a society which has fairly narrow constraints about what constitutes acceptable social behaviour, political views, religious beliefs, etc., and the world of potential employers, immigration officers, juries, constituencies, housing committees, etc. may be even narrower, glass walls best favor those who fall well within the conventions.

Those who can afford to take responsibility for their nonconventional behavior, divergent political views, heretical religious beliefs, outrageous behaviour, etc. may also derive benefit from transparent transactions with social media, of course, as long as they are operating within the parameters of what is acceptable in their chosen sub-cultures.

(The illustration is the book cover of Evgeni Zamyatin’s 1920s science fiction novel, We, whose characters live in glass-walled flats.)

I’ve gone back to Facebook for a while to learn about some of the changes happening there, and have just been reading an article by Jesse Stay about new possibilities regarding Facebook lists. Facebook lists are interesting, and, like Twitter lists, could be used to manage Facebook when one is dealing with thousands of friends (I’m not, and most people aren’t – but if the intention would be to use facebook as more than a way of staying in touch with a few friends, then it might become relevant).

Lists seem to have 2 main purposes, but these can be mutually contradictory:

(a) To enable broadcast to a specific group of people who may be interested in a certain kind of posting (below the status box, click the lock icon, then Customize, then “Specific People”, then choose name of list).

(b) To enable a filtered view of activity (click Friends on left margin, then choose the list name).

I just made a list called M.E. Peace, Israel & Palestine Issues. I could use this list to (a) broadcast links to news stories on these issues. And (b) I could use it to read stories from people who have something to say about these issues.

The problem is that not everyone who is interested in this kind of posting would have something interesting to say about the subject area.

It would therefore be necessary to create 2 similar lists – one for broadcast (which would be kept private) and the other for receiving, which could be visibly placed on the profile page.

The Brahmanic view of the universe is one in which human beings play an intimate and essential part in the natural cycles and systems of our world. We cannot be just consumers, and yet we can produce nothing by ourselves. We are full participants in the processes of creation and destruction. These processes depend upon us, but not only on us.

In the brahmanic universe, it was not only a question of planting seeds, waiting for rain and sunshine and then harvesting crops. There was the necessity to give something back. This giving took the form of a reverential relationship toward all life. It involved sacrifice and gratitude. Such an attitude affects the way in which we treat animals, the soil and the resources we need to survive upon the planet.