The politics of our time still mirror the power centers of the last century. We debate the influence that other countries have on us, or how corporations are meddling in our affairs; but the emerging power centers of this new century are starting to polarize the world in unexpected ways. The trick will be to recognize these power centers, by identifying the shifting poles that attract and repel humanity. Often, these changes are subtle, though they wash over us.
Here's an example:
Woman doesn't clean up her dog's mess -- blog infamy ensuesIn Korea, a woman's dog crapped on the train. When people on the train asked her to clean up the mess, she became belligerent. Within hours, she was labeled gae-ttong-nyue (dog-shit-girl) and her pictures and parodies were everywhere. Within days, her identity and her past were revealed. Request for information about her parents and relatives started popping up and people started to recognize her by the dog and the bag she was carrying as well as her watch, clearly visible in the original picture.Tyrants like Saddam, Kim Jong Il and Karimov occupy the front pages, and gae-ttong-nyue is reported as a footnote, presented as an amusing cultural oddity. Yet gae-ttong-nyue defines how the next wave of tyranny is going to come from us, not necessarily future Saddams. Tyranny might actually come from you and I -- the people who laugh at Dog-Shit-Girl, who think we're above inflicting tyranny.
Did Dog-Shit-Girl merely earn her comeuppance, by letting her lapdog soil the spotless train? Because she's also been mercilessly raped by her own society, for a minor infraction. Her rapists are cowards with video cellphones, who are confrontational only with the keyboard and mouse. The real crime here is her punishment, meted-out by an unelected pious clergy representing Mob Sharia, a new code that we have no real experience with. Mobs have been the beginnings of many a tyranny -- the ochlocratic mobs of Rome demanding the praetorian prefect Cleander's head; or the Parisian mobs of the French revolution. Now it's passengers on trains, with small devices. It's us.
Mobs; swarms; social networks. These terms are the salon parlance of contemporary movers and shakers who can make game boxes, video phones and iPods do a lot more than play DRM-copyrighted corporate schlock by Sting. Yes, they're dastardly clever, and very innovative. The good might be outweighed by the bad with respect to this boring technology -- and that's bore as in 'to bore holes,' like termites in soft wood, eventually permeating it into useless sponge. But who's really to say how all this will turn out? Power is shifting and collecting in unexpected, strange places.
In tyrannies, you watch your back; you modify your behavior to suit the regime. But what regime might gae-ttong-nyue be? Does it have a center, or a head? Or is it the shifting sands -- reactive swarms that group, morph, innovate and regroup to suit momentary morality? And if nobody runs this tyranny, then it's complete, and final -- never to be undone, having become culture itself. We simply become a part of it, mirroring the endless bits that compose it.
Power is politics, and technology changes who or what has that power. We live in a culture that clings to lost political ideals while technology routes around power centers, and establishes new ones. And they might not even be influenced by people, in the end. That's an open question.
Technological innovation in our time means so much more than interesting blogs, democracy in Lebanon and chatting with people across the planet for free. It means the rules of society and culture are being rearranged, even abolished. Hopefully for the better. But nobody's writing the new rules in this revolution -- hyper-evolution has the quill and parchment. What comes out of all of it for us may not be cumulatively for the better.
Whatever we gain in life, we attain it at the cost of what we have, and what we are. Nostalgia is the recognition of what we have lost. We shouldn't avoid change, but we should see ourselves clearly. History's major fulcrums have rarely been predicted, much less preempted or navigated until they're upon us. History's newest fulcrum might begin with a feculent dog on a metro train in Seoul.
The Nazi analaogy is more than a bit much, Cicero. I recommend a better example. The French Revolution, maybe, as the epitome of mob rule in modern politics?
Better still, you could go all the way back to the Athenians, where people were often exiled and had their possessions confiscated by simple votes of the mob.
but the Nazis? This is exactly what Durbin (deservedly) got into a lot of trouble for. Rethink.
Good points about mob mentality. Something to keep in mind, in this new vastly interconnected world.
[I think "CRM-copyright" should be "DRM" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management ]
In any case, ultimatley it seems that the surplus of idle time, the poverty of compelling moment-to-moment interests power the CellGang force. Consider...
A trainload of people commuting between X and Y are one BORED bunch of yokies. The ones waiting in queue are just as laconic. Stand or sit; read, sleep or pan; kibbutz, ignore or engage; there isn't much else to do. The Dog shits, someone says, "ooo... what a stupid dog(owner)... you better clean that shit up...", and the frayed, taxed, breaking-point taught tensions overflow into a classic challenge. "Fvck You!" is inevitable, and then it degrades into the "gae ttong nyue" affair. Might even make TV. Might already have.
We're a bored populus, mostly. Electric trains whisk us quickly and effeciently between concrete platforms, concrete covered stairways, concrete sidewalks, concrete house stairs. Mud has been exiled to the sticks. One gets every product imaginable encased in pretty glittery packeging, in crystal clear plastic boxes, in disposible plastic bags, to be used and discarded for newer plastic googaws, only in months, not decades of aude. The news is banal, the TV shows are vacuous, the activities "at work" are pure drudgery. Competition for the drudgerous living is fierce, competition for the train is fierce, jostling for a pork bun, a new plastic googaw, this season's shoes, and a raise, a promotion is fierce. One's kids are amazingly imperfect compared to everyone else's, the car has issues, the mother-in-law considers all things new all things bad. You're new. Bad.
The pressure cooker of modern society is what is begetting the new tyranny, per your article, Cicero. Laws to ban smoking indoors have become bans to smoking outdoors, and now amazingly court-authorized rights for employers to fire employees who only smoke at home, in their privacy. Prohibition attempted to drain the kegs of social communinion, riots followed and repeal. I'm sorry: society is just to harsh a reality in its banality and ingrown politics to forswear drinks one and all. No society that is completely drug-free is stable. Even the ones that take liberties with inebriety tend toward the maudlin at times.
Yes, the stigmatization of Shit-Dog-Girl are at odds with the tyrannies of Stalin and Pol Pot. Only due to the stigmatization in general of all transgressions of society's Codex of Etiquette. And that paean of civility is a fashion-and-honor driven document. Beware of the Fashion Police. They're so politically correct, and yet they bear no witness to Law and Order, just to Gauche and B'gora.
The individual ants of the hill are each responsible to attack the outsider. It may be a testimonial to our centrist ideals, that so many of society's individuals become vanguards of venality and the posse of petty pretention.
GoatGuy
Joe, Goat,
Thanks for the feedback. Joe, you're right about overusing the Nazi analogy. I changed that to references about the mobs of Rome and Paris.
Goat,
CRM has been on my mind. Changed that to DRM too.
Public shame is what society uses to enforce societal norms - most notably manners and appropriate levels of behaviour.
It's isn't used enough here in the west. People used to be shamed into behaving themselves but now feel no shame in acting like an A-hole in public.
50 years ago if you went into a store and started yelling at the sales person the manager would have thrown your ass out on the street. Now the manager will come over and give you a discount.
If you broke societies norms, you felt the consequenses of that. Tyranny? I think not.
Behaviour is a key indicator of a societies values and morals. Ours are like that Korean woman's new name.
Well, having participated in a 'mob' or whatever in Easongate, I guess I disagree. Without the internet, Mr. Jordan's remarks would have passed without notice or censure.
I would also say that referrng to poo-poo woman's treatment as rape is a bit extreme as well. She deserved to be castigated for her uncivilized behavior. Was it a bit overboard? Perhaps. But perhaps not. I bet she reconsiders doing this in the future, as do others. She thought she could act like a bore and not pay the price. She's wrong, and she now knows it.
If the new tyranny is limited to shame and ridicule as it's means of enforcement, then bring it on. In case you haven't noticed there is no shame in America anymoe.
Our version of gae-ttong-nyue would get a deal to host a "reality" show where the contestants would be happy to eat the original cause of contention.
LOL.
"The politics of our time still mirror the power centers of the last century..."
Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.
You, know, mostly when I come to this site I find really intelligent social and geo-political commentary written from the vantage point of someone with real expertise in the subject. That's why I keep coming back, and why to a large extent windsofchange.net has become my primary information filter. I can rely on this site to link to what's important, to separate fact from opinion, to gather all the relevant information without partisan bias, and all the other things that the MSM has long failed me in doing.
But sometimes, your general aura of professionalism and competance gets lifted and we get a glimpse of the people behind the curtain. That's fine and all, and at least here when the audience starts laughing at you, you can hear it - but there are times when I really wish you guys would do a little more peer/editorial review before releasing some of these posts. I mean seriously, I was starting to think of you as media rather than mere blogs.
Do you honestly think this is evidence of something new in Korean culture? Is the tyranny of conformity really anything new to Koreans, Japanese, and heck for that matter Swedes and Swiss? Is this really evidence of something sweeping global culture? This technological change is merely a change in scale, not a seed change into something new. If we were to move back a 100 or 200 or 300 years into America's past, we'd find in many places the same sort of mono-cultural village mentality with the same sort of mob behavior when that mono-culture was violated. You are not seeing a manifestation of a new form of tyranny, just a manifestation of the global village.
This same thing could have happened merely by word of mouth in Korea 50 or 500 years ago. The only difference is that in some since its harder to leave the village. In other senses, its also easier to leave the village. The net change is not as big as you think it is.
I'm sorry, but the exclamation that "It's us [that is the mob]." rings not only hollow to me, but comicly alarmist. The U.S. is as far from village culture now as it has ever been, and the more recent attempts to create such a mono-culture (Political Correctness) are experiencing powerful backlash. What I think this whole essay of yours actually is, is a reflexively American backlash against an example of, in this case Korean, culture of conformity and social order. America has been - at least since the Great Awakening and maybe earlier - a culture which has embrased individuality, tolerance, diversity, and non-conformity and has both been rewarded by this and paid the price for this.
Ultimately, the technology is neutral. In America, the same technology is being used to create increasingly integrated micro-cultures and communities made of members separated spatially but not culturally. Prior to the globalization of the village, individuals weren't gauranteed to meet like minded people sharing thier interests. Now, no matter what you believe or think, you can find a support community. This isn't always good or bad either. The same technology that allows you to leave the village and its conformity has for example been an incredible boon in the fortunes of the pedaphile community, precisely because it allows that community to escape the sort of ostrazation experienced by the 'Dog-Shit-Girl'.
I think you probably should let a Korean expert handle the essay on 'Dog-Shit-Girl' or at least run it by a few Korean experts (and I'm not one) to get perspective before claiming you know what this means, and I certainly think you are making rather bizarre claims about the applicability of a Korean culture phenonenom to the entire global culture.
Yeah, I basicly agree with what Warwick, Bill, and lurker said.
Because she's also been mercilessly raped by her own society, for a minor infraction. Her rapists
Just as a data point, that's where I stopped reading. Analogizing everything from denying promotions to public mockery to "rape" is objectionable for the same reason analogizing everything to Nazism is: it trivializes the crime of rape and insults its victims, at the same time it uses a cheap rhetorical trick to try to make us angry at the perpetrator of the outrage du jour. It's an offensive tactic and I'm surprised to see it being used on WoC.
Yeah, I also think this is a little over the top.
First, Asian societies have used non-technilogical means of doing things like this for a long time.
Next, if you get out of the major urban centers here in the West, it happens as well. Small towns are ruthless reputation managers.
And I'm not completely sure I see that as a completely bad thing.
A.L.
I can't see this as unique to Asian societies or small towns. When summer associates at law firms do something stupid--and someone always does--it circulates via email very rapidly, and often winds up in paper publications as well.
A couple of acquaintences were involved in a heavily-discussed New York incident earlier this summer; no photos went out, and names were mostly omitted, but everyone knows now. And New York isn't exactly a small town (although perhaps the legal community, in NYC and nationwide, is a kind of "small town.")
Dog do do is not a minor infractiion of the social rules. It may be a minor infraction of the legal rules.
Think of what this means for S. Korea.
A lot less doggy do to dodge.
I think the whole society got "sent a message".
Too bad about the unfortunate woman. Good for Korea.
I believe that society must enforce society's norms (because the alternative is bleak). But I can sympathize with Cicero somewhat, in wondering whether the punishment fit the crime.
#12 Rob,
So what was the infractiion?
How about the juicy gossipy details.
You can change the names.
Witch hunts.
Hmmm... Looks to me like the group most offended by a rather liberal questioning of the rights of individuals versus the powers of the anonymous vigilante minutemen, are those who profess to WoC adoration because they can get "relevant information without partisan bias". In other words, just the tiniest bit of questioning the authority of the masses in their pursuit of P.C. gets flamed. How partisan.
The truth is darker than Cicero alludes. In case celebrim et alia missed it, the CrapChowGal example was highlighted not to focus on the Koreans, but to put in parable context the greater issue of the new digital/IM revolution and its much much wider impact on the individual. Especially when subject to anonymous PC vigitilanteism.
It appears to be happening all the time, and increasingly so: on a microcosmic scale, my children have relayed disturbing trends amongst their cell-phone toting friends to fling embarrassing pictures of the subjects of their ire all over the place. The effect that once used to require WORK (as in photographing, or illustration, then photocopying) to achieve now is reduced to a triviality via the camera-equipped cell phone.
I guess I am defending the question that Cicero asks: are we prepared to deal with the possibility that innocuous PC self-censure may become virulent, as per that which preceded but most assuredly powered the rise of Nazism in 1920's Germany? They had no cell phones. Neither did the Soviets, and theirs is certainly a long legacy of neighbor-spying-on-neighbor. This appears to be Cicero's fear, unsubtly gleaned.
We must not react at all to Korean DogShitGirl issue itself. It is merely the rhetorical instrument to cause us to ask where liberty leaves off and social monoculturalism trumps the hand.
GoatGuy
M Simon,
I'm sure you can uncover it with a little googly work or poking around the right chat boards. For my part, I think the parties involved have learned their lesson and don't feel a need to shame them any further, even with names changed.
I like Cicero's essays. This one is interesting also, but the threat is way overblown. As has been mentioned all societies have taboos and codes of behavior that are enforced only by social pressure. Saying this is tyranny is overreaching.
There's no central authority to tyrannize anyone. It's a spontaneous social reaction. Perhaps the language lacks a term to precisely describe the phenomenon?
While it's true that modern tools allows this social pressure to be more widely distributed, perhaps even to the extent that it is different in quality as much as quantity WRT traditional social ostracization. The thing is the rules of society will evolve to compensate. The tools of the Internet and cell phones are have not been completely obsorbed into society.
Let's think about those teenagers mentioned above sneding around embarassing pictures of their peers. It all seems fun to them now. How long before the stigma evolves such that it's the one sending the pictures who will be stimatized?
So how exactly does publicly shaming someone for letting her dog defecate on a train without cleaning it up rise to the level of “tyranny” or “rape”?
Out of all the problems we face today, an excess of public shame for rude behavior isn’t one of them. While I don’t agree with conformity for the sake of conformity, there is a clear distinction between that and the behavior of someone who shows an utter disregard for how their actions and/or negligence affect others.
"Because she's also been mercilessly raped by her own society, for a minor infraction. Her rapists are cowards with video cellphones, who are confrontational only with the keyboard and mouse."
Is this a parody? Seriously, I cant tell. The Dick Durbin analogy is sound. The Universal Hyperbole-Draining Syringe needs to be applied here: getting gang raped (actually having one or more orifi penetrated by phalli i believe the definition goes) because your brother was rumored to have had a relationship with a higher cast member, that is tyranny. Being stoned to death by your fellow villagers for putting on makeup, that is tyranny.
Being laughed at on the internet for doing something highly worthy of ridicule? Please. This doesnt even rise to the level of serious debate. Tell me this is parody.
When did we nerfify life so much that enduring ridicule is equated with the most horrifying experiences a human can undergo? I guess Amnesty was wrong, Highschools are actually the Gulags of our time.
I love this!! "nerfify life"...I'm stealing it.
A.L.
Hmmm. I was considering relieving myself on the train this afternoon but in light of this story....sigh....I guess I'll have to wait.
Or at least wear a snappy disguise while doing so.
Goat Guy: I'm not at all sure what you are talking about.
"Hmmm... Looks to me like the group most offended by a rather liberal questioning of the rights of individuals versus the powers of the anonymous vigilante minutemen..."
Err.. you think you could squeeze some more prejugdicing language into that sentence? In what sense of the word do you use 'liberal'? Couldn't we have equally spoken of this as the 'rights of criminals versus the power of justly offended society do defend itself from criminal acts'?
Since its primarily Cicero's overwrought language and tone that troubles me, I don't see how you think you are being corrective.
"...are those who profess to WoC adoration because they can get "relevant information without partisan bias"."
I guess I'm one of 'those', but you are rather clueless about what things in the essay actually trouble me. I'm troubled by its superficiality. I'm troubled by its overwrought language. I'm troubled by its use of easy and imperfect analogies. I'm troubled by its failure to address the tension involved in this, since neither side in this incident is engaged in what anyone here is going to call fully constructive social behavior.
"In other words, just the tiniest bit of questioning the authority of the masses in their pursuit of P.C. gets flamed."
Huh? First, please don't put words in my mouth. There is no need for your spin doctoring. Do I look like a defender of political correctness to you? Did I come out as a defender of political correctness? Do you think that I'm a statist? A communist? Did I try to frame the debate in marxist terms?
I believe its perfectly appropriate to address the role of technology in enforcing social mores. A balanced look at this might well be interesting. There are all sorts of questions to be raised in such an exploration. To what extent do we want society to be able to enforce standards of behavior through extra-legal means, and to what extent to we wish to make those extra-legal means themselves illegal? To what extent do we want to rely on enforcing standards of behavior through the means of shame, pariah, and ettiquette and to what extent do we want to make these sub-criminal actions criminal? What are the consequences of society going to one extreme or the other? What is an acceptable middle path? Does the flow of information make imposing social mores via ostracization easier or harder in modern multi-cultural societies? For example, is it easier for Ward Churchill to adopt an anti-social stance in today's society because of its connectivity or is it harder?
"How partisan."
That stretches the use of the word beyond any meaning. Exacltly whose side do you think I'm coming down on?
"The truth is darker than Cicero alludes."
LOL. wipes spittle off the monitor LOL (again). How... bombastic. So you are saying that in your opinion Cicero deliberately moderated his tone by mentioning say Nazi's, in order to not shock his audience? Are you saying that in fact Cicero wrote a reasoned moderate post because the truth is so dark that he knew we couldn't handle it? Please do reveal this 'darker' truth.
"In case celebrim et alia missed it, the CrapChowGal example was highlighted not to focus on the Koreans..."
Err... Read me again. I didn't miss that.
"...but to put in parable context the greater issue of the new digital/IM revolution and its much much wider impact on the individual."
Err... I think I was pretty clear about that. I think I specifically rejected however that an incident in Korea could be used as a parable for the impact of the IT revolution.
"Especially when subject to anonymous PC vigitilanteism."
There you go again.
"It appears to be happening all the time, and increasingly so: on a microcosmic scale, my children have relayed disturbing trends amongst their cell-phone toting friends to fling embarrassing pictures of the subjects of their ire all over the place. The effect that once used to require WORK (as in photographing, or illustration, then photocopying) to achieve now is reduced to a triviality via the camera-equipped cell phone."
And my point is that the reverse is happening all the time too. People who once were isolated by the community because thier behavior was considered embarassing, can easily form small but self-sufficient pariah communities in which thier formerly embarassing behavior is embarassed by a social group which approves of it. The global village is infact made up of millions of little microcommunities, of which places like Democratic Underground and windsofchange.net are just a tiny few. Name your interest or your belief system, and its out there with a full fledged funded support group for it.
"I guess I am defending the question that Cicero asks: are we prepared to deal with the possibility that innocuous PC self-censure may become virulent, as per that which preceded but most assuredly powered the rise of Nazism in 1920's Germany?"
How many times must Godwin's Law be violated in the same thread? I swear, I'm getting sick and tired of hearing about Nazis in the context of discussion that don't involve Nazis.
"They had no cell phones. Neither did the Soviets, and theirs is certainly a long legacy of neighbor-spying-on-neighbor. This appears to be Cicero's fear, unsubtly gleaned."
I'm terribly surprised that George Orwell's 1984 hasn't been made a conveinent analogy yet. Look, the important part is, that at its heart, this doesn't require a cell phone or email. Sometimes communities just get to a place where the legitimate pressure that a society places on its members to conform to some basic standards of behavior becomes stiffling, and sometimes communities get to a place that in an effort to be tolerant they fail to impose on thier members even basic standards of behavior and the system that the functioning of the community depends on just unravels. Typically in human history, the one leads to the other (by necessity) and so the best course of action is to keep a steady hand on the wheel and not overreact to things.
"We must not react at all to Korean DogShitGirl issue itself. It is merely the rhetorical instrument to cause us to ask where liberty leaves off and social monoculturalism trumps the hand."
Or to ask were the interests of social responcibility leaves off and license and sense of entitlement trump the hand.
The problem with even bringing up 'DogSh1tGirl' in the issue of liberty, is that that sort of irresponcibility liberty is a threat to liberty. Liberty can be abused, and its quite possible that both sides in this story were abusing it.
What defines dog-shit-girl is after all dog shit. But in our own multi-culti society we may no longer voice our universal prejudices. But we are now free to excoriate a fat dude, a cowboy, a Christian, a redneck, a lawyer, a used car salesman, and at last, a dog-shit-girl. May our prejudices fit in the bounds of common acceptability.
Mark: Excellent post.
------------------------------------------
Seriously. The blogosphere is not a tyranny. It's quite the opposite of a tyranny. We are not a mob of tyrants imposing our politically correct views.
Yes, occassionally we shame and ridicule actions. For every such case, there is always someone on the other side defending the actions or at least accusing those that are doing the ridiculing.
That is true even in this case. Even though having your dog crap on a train is pretty indefensible, here we are having a conversation because someone thought that the people doing the ridiculing are as bad as Nazi's or the French mob during the Terror, and ridicule or embarassment is analogous to gang rape. Dogshitgirl has her international champion defending her right to be a dogshitgirl!
For all hyperbole about how the information technology is going to turn us into a slobbering lynch mob (and there is alot of that), there just isn't alot of evidence of that to me.
Consider the most obvious impact of information technology - the CBS fake memo case. CBS presented some memos and was widely and immediately ridiculed by a 'mob'. Some see this as the evidence of tyranny (mostly journalists so far). Some see this as the evidence of true democracy in action. Whatever the case, it is not true that the bloggers were by ridiculing CBS challenging CBS on the grounds that CBS violated political correctness. In the US since the time of Nixon, its been politically correct in this country to ridicule and attack the President. Far from attacking CBS's departure from political correctness, the blogosphere was violating traditional political correctness by defending the President and attacking the media. It was - in this case - the blogosphere that was being politically incorrect. Note that prior to Watergate, no journalist would have dared attack a sitting President with such flimsy evidence precisely because they would have known that the result would be an enraged country ridiculing them and demanding they pay a social penalty for engaging in behavior (criticizing the government during wartime) that was political incorrect at the time.
I think it is very much an open question whether IT empowers the majority or the minority. After all, the same medium by which 'dogshitgirl' is getting attacked empowers her to get her side of the story out and the very clamor that ridicules her creates an audience for that story.
Agree or disagree, Cicero can get a debate started!
I just remembered an essay that David Brin wrote once about privacy. His thesis was that technology was making a "global small town" where everyone who wanted could know about much of our lives that is now private. I think he would argue that the problem with the Korean incident is one of too much privacy not too little. What if the people ridculing the girl and posting her picture were as accontable as she?
Though I haven't yet found the essay (anyone better at ZGoogling than me?), here's an except of a book he's written on the subject. Let's just say he's more optimistic than Cicero about the possible outcomes.
What was once shameful is now a badge of honor.
Baltimore's Man of Grotesque Brillance
I'm not at all concerned to the point Cicero may be concerning mob mentality but then maybe it's because the outlandish is now common place. The more the outlandish the better is what seems to be the protocol (reality TV). My concern is when people lose recognition of the outlandish and it becomes the norm. When society rejects the value of Leave It to Beaver and promotes the dysfunctional Ozzy Osbourne as the acceptable family structure. In my opinion nowhere do we see this more than in the Arts and Media. All the while the Arts and Media draw on protection by law and scorn the mob with impunity.
SACRIFICE, PISS CHRIST AND LIBERAL EXCESS
SACRIFICE, PISS CHRIST AND LIBERAL EXCESS - The Rebuttal
Does this story have a ring of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Possibly but one must remember even Hester Prynne refused to shuck the badge of humiliation and wear it with honor.
Well said TW. As for the Dog Shit Lady - I wonder if she would the leave the dog shit on her living room floor. As for the sanitary crowd reaming her out royally I'm sure Las Vegas wouldn't give a damn one way or the other.
MB / AL
Excuse my ignorance but what the heck is "nerfify"?
nerfify v. Make an object safe as to avoid injury. From nerf ball.
(I just made this up!)
Readers,
Mea culpa: I spent too little time coming up with the right analogies for my deeply held suspicion that technological innovation is a two-sided coin. And my strokes were painted too broadly. I apologize for writing, as it turns out, a crappy, badly conceived essay. Now it's my dog who has messed up the train.
I think that eventually, even if every single country on the planet becomes a democracy, the levers of tyranny will move from the halls of government to the silicon that binds us. I see that power base shifting. I don't know about you, but I feel increasingly watched, analyzed and measured against all kinds of data in all kinds of places. My 15 month daughter is practically a victim for not having a Social Security number, like she's a gallon of milk lacking an OCR code at the checkout register. And a little tacit admission here: I work within the data-mining industry at times, and I see it's potential for a lot of good and a lot of evil. Perhaps that has made me irrational in this essay, and I am simply superficial, overwrought and used bad analogies, as Celebrim is troubled by. I accept that judgement.
Bad analogies aside, I maintain that the present arc of evolution might exceed our capacity to deal with it. We often assume that evolution equals progress; but we should consider the possibility that that might not always be true. It could be that evolution only lets us have something as long as it doesn't cost too much.
Celebrim said:
...the important part is, that at its heart, this doesn't require a cell phone or email. Sometimes communities just get to a place where the legitimate pressure that a society places on its members to conform to some basic standards of behavior becomes stiffling, and sometimes communities get to a place that in an effort to be tolerant they fail to impose on thier members even basic standards of behavior and the system that the functioning of the community depends on just unravels. Typically in human history, the one leads to the other (by necessity) and so the best course of action is to keep a steady hand on the wheel and not overreact to things.
Personally, I think it what happened to Dog Girl was a gross overreaction. And I think technology had a lot to do with the magnitude of that overreaction, and that this case is illustrative of the excess that is possible in this era. It could be that it's normal societal stresses at play, but they're amplified beyond belief. And that trend is in its infancy. New stresses will come in a future era when every human being has the potential to be a live broadcaster. I'm not sure who will have a monopoly of power in that world, but it sure is coming.
And no, I wasn't positing that the blogosphere is a tyranny. I meant to posit that parts of the blogosphere can be a tyranny. Too many people talk about the blogosphere like we all know it's going to be a force for good, QED. I think it's just a force -- a very potent one. We'll see how good. So far, it's been pretty good, depending on where you look. Winds is certainly a bright spot. The CBS memo was a lucky break, in my opinion. The forgery was so incompetently done, it was an easy score. What do you suppose the blogosphere's potential to distribute forgeries is? Forgeries that are so good they can't be disproved? The truth has always been hard to nail down. I don't see that changing anytime soon on this medium, even allowing for its obvious benefits. If truths can be broadcast so widely on this medium, then untruths must have the same potential.
I wish I could read Arabic, because I would love to read Middle Eastern blogs. I'd like to find out if lies like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion can stand up to the scrutiny of blogs. Or if instead, there's vast areas of the Arab blogosphere where the Elders of Zion is defacto truth, and is magnified by the medium somehow. I really don't know the answer there. But I can't read Arabic. Perhaps Praktike could give some info on this.
As always, thanks to all of you for your input, especially Lurker and Celebrim. I am here to learn from wise people like them.
Cicero, that was an excellent comment that does a lot to clarify where you were coming from. You may want consider posting a portion of it as an update for your original entry.
"Mea culpa"
Ok, apology accepted. Believe me, I've written some stinkers before in the past as well. I'm only protected by the fact that I lurk around in the comments and am too cowardly (thus far) to blog.
"I spent too little time coming up with the right analogies for my deeply held suspicion that technological innovation is a two-sided coin."
You don't have to be suspicious any longer - technological innovation is definately a two-sided coin. A certain story by HG Wells that is attracting some small attention right now predicted as much (many of his stories did), and we've a few decades since then to confirm his suspicions.
"I think that eventually, even if every single country on the planet becomes a democracy, the levers of tyranny will move from the halls of government to the silicon that binds us."
No, I don't think you can blame the silicon, unless we move into some sort of Asimov style Technocracy, and even then you'll have only programmers like myself to blame. Blaming the silicon is like blaming the guns. It's entirely possible that guns make large scale murder easier, but a review of human history shows that we've been able to perform mega-death scale massacres with little more than sharpened clubs pretty much throughout our history.
The real question is whether technology empowers the majority or empowers the minority, and whether either can control access to the technology. If the technology is cheap or easy to produce, my bet is that access to it cannot be controlled. If the technology is easy to use, my bet is that it empowers the minority. Which category IT falls it is still something of a mystery, and I don't think we are going to know until we see whether or not the Chinese government can successfully control the technology.
"I see that power base shifting. I don't know about you, but I feel increasingly watched, analyzed and measured against all kinds of data in all kinds of places."
Maybe it comes from having grown up in a village, but I don't. I feel only the eyes of the disinterested, and I think that the capacity to record information is vastly outstripping the capacity to analyze it. Until that trend turns around, I don't think you should be worried.
"I maintain that the present arc of evolution might exceed our capacity to deal with it."
Future shock? People have been predicting that since the '70s at least, and I've yet to see much signs of it.
"We often assume that evolution equals progress; but we should consider the possibility that that might not always be true."
We might have to consider that progress and evolution are nuetral things. You say I'm 'wise'. I'm most certainly not. Someone far wiser than I said, "There is nothing new under the sun."
I could be wrong, but I think you are looking at something and assuming that there is change, when in fact its just the same old story told in a new way.
More later, but I've got to change venues.
Although shame may be uncomfortable for this woman, it's hard to equate the public exposure producing shame with any coherent idea of tyranny. Indeed, Frederick Turner equates it with beauty. Or to put it more concisely, shame is the "other side" of beauty, without which the latter wouldn't really exist. And beauty is our most efficient means for arriving at truth. Societies that avoid shame, or make it's use taboo, are societies that... at the limit, are unable to differentiate ugliness from beauty, or truth from falsity. Instead one ought to follow the course of the "dog-shit girl" story to see if Turner's theory plays out..., and the participants in the combined drama somehow find their way to beauty and truth.
One has to wonder whether a more coherent and acceptable use of shame might influence the apparently shameless to stop short of unmitigated squalor.
Cicero
Curious. How is she a victim?
Like you I also work in the Data Processing Industry. I've been involved with large mainframes since 1976 and started out as a computer operator on an IBM 360 running MFT (Multiple Fixed Tasks). Storage devices were 2305 DASD (hard drives for the PC folk), IBM 3420 800 bpi tape drives. The advances in mainframe processors and DASD as well as tape storage over the last 30 years is astounding if not overwhelming to say the least. The computing power and storage capability of that time is dwarfed by the personal computers most people now own.
In my opinion data collection is the least of our worries. The vast amounts of data currently available to the general public is growing leaps and bounds. As you are in the data mining business you are certainly aware of the many obstacles one faces when attempting to collect and analyze data for what ever purposes they choose. That said given the number of people on this earth and some one viewing or stealing your personal data for malevolent use is rather slim considering the odds. This however does not mean that we shouldn't protect data as we would protect our personal belongings.
Seems to me your concern is more about communication with regards to rapid dissemination of the information, the potential expanse, and the personal damage it may cause. I can think of several reasons why this might cause some people heart burn but to be practical about it I don't see why someone in New Zealand let alone the community 20 miles away would care if I was caught streaking down main street during rush hour.
The bigger question is what is the importance and value of the data or the content of the communication? That value or importance can carry the potential of pushing the red button at a missile silo or ordering the next round of cabbage patch dolls. In the course things this is only relative to those that maintain an interest. For those that have lost a hard drive with their novel in progress and saved E-Mails over the years the pain can be rather daunting. It was more than frustrating to those that found their cell phones, land lines, and beepers inoperable and worthless on 9/11. Put this on a grander scale though and discontent will certainly rear its' ugly head.
Something else to ponder. Even if one could restore the massive amounts of data that has a potential of being destroyed you have to ask yourself several questions? How long would it take, what data is of utmost importance, and how long can any business survive without it? Credit card companies, mega financial institutions, federal agencies such as the IRS / INS, and insurance industries have a major problem on their hands. The data they house and are entrusted with has been collected and stored on electronic media for years. Can you imagine how long and what it would take to restore it all in one fell swoop? Attempting such a task pushes the envelope of technology.
I have another idea. Imagine using this means to ridicule the Mugabes, Kims, Mullahs, etc.
If the MSM was involved too (and they would have to be, eventually) how long could these bastards survive?
I believe ridicule (and they all have a lot to hide)would destroy them quicker than bombs. It should be part of our arsenal.
#18 Rob Lyman,
I like cheap gossip.
If I have to go hunting for it I'm not that interested.
I agree with #5 and #20.
I think we have let privacy allow the lazy and immoral people to hide their misbehavior. If she was among friends or if dog-shit-girl had expected her identity to become known she would have cleaned up the mess.
I think she got exactly what she had coming and hope this happens much more often.
People must take responsiblility for their actions (or inactions).
I'd never heard of gae-ttong-nyue before this post, but I have heard of the runaway bride and the atrocity of urine-splashed Korans. I've read the NY Times' reports about the hopes and dreams of insurgents and other bold and daring Islamist 'rebels', and I know more than I ever wanted to know about Tom Cruise's mental breakdown.
We've been living with the mob mentality of the mass media for many years, and we've managed to survive, barely. The mob rule of the media is just beginning to be challenged by the internet/blogs and that's a good thing. If I had to make a choice between the mob rule enforced by ordinary people and the mob mentality of the perpetually hysterical terror-cheerleading press, I'd choose the former, the ordinary mob. The net is the best democracy we've got - for the people, by the people, with all the good and bad that goes with it.
"nerfify v. Make an object safe as to avoid injury. From nerf ball.
(I just made this up!)"
Good definition. 'Nerfify' is officially public domain. Just let it be known it was coined at WoC (maybe leave out the dog-poo part).
"Personally, I think it what happened to Dog Girl was a gross overreaction."
I do too, but I also think that what happened is fairly typical of what happens when you break the social standards of the group. All that has happened here is that the technology has allowed the group to return to itself the long held power to break the anonymity of the individual. The lady on the bus thought she was safe from the social pressure of the group and could defy it by simply walking away. Prior to modern technology, living in a village environment in which everyone knows virtually everyone, she would have had no such feelings. So, everything old is new again. What else is new?
"And I think technology had a lot to do with the magnitude of that overreaction, and that this case is illustrative of the excess that is possible in this era."
See, that's where we principally disagree. I don't think technology had anything to do with the magnitude of the overreaction. If you want to see real overreaction of great magnitude, you watch what happens in a tribal village of Pakistan or Africa when someone breaks the social standards of the community. Shame would be the least of that person's problems. Or go back a century or two and consider the European practice of branding letters on the faces of those that broke the social norms of the community. That's a low tech means of accomplishing the same thing and its far more extreme than what is managed with cell phones and emails.
"It could be that it's normal societal stresses at play, but they're amplified beyond belief."
No, they are just normal societal stresses.
"And that trend is in its infancy."
No, its been part of human society for as long as thier has been a human society. If anything, modern anonymity, modern freedom of travel, and the multi-cultural interaction that brings have rendered the stress of shame and conformity less effective in today's society than at any previous time in human history. If cultural groups for which 'shame' has been an important part of the very basis of the culture start looking for ways to regain that power, we should not be surprised.
Now, to what extent 'shame' is a productive basis for society is an entirely different question. My personal feeling is that the 'shame' cultures are less effective than the 'honor' cultures (though the two terms are often used loosely and in related ways), but I don't feel that 'shame' is completely ineffective or utterly devoid of purpose in a society. When a person feels no 'shame' for what they do, we refer to that person as a sociopath. I think a society utterly devoid of shame would be pathological - but of course I also feel that cultures with eggerated senses of shame (Arab comes to mind) are equally pathological.
"New stresses will come in a future era when every human being has the potential to be a live broadcaster. I'm not sure who will have a monopoly of power in that world, but it sure is coming."
Why should we ever think that in a world in which every human being is a potential broadcaster, that anyone would have monopoly power over the flow of information in such a world? I think that the information age will see a shift in power, but I'm not entirely certain where it will go. I do think now that OSC in 'Ender's Game' was somewhat preciescent in his prediction that people who could use the net to communicate to a wide audience would be able to accrue alot of political power to themselves in age when people were swamped with information and wanted a clear filter to tell them what it all meant. I think the blogosphere is a long way from generating real political power, but I do see it coming. Every media technology, from the printing press, to the radio, to the TV, has eventually garnered to people who could use it well real influence and power. Who the first 'Locke' or 'Demosthenes' is going to be, I don't know, but I'm sure we will eventually see them.
#39, Mary:
I believe ridicule (and they all have a lot to hide)would destroy them quicker than bombs. It should be part of our arsenal.
I dunno. I think they simply wouldn't care. I doubt your average Mullah has ever read a blog in his life, and I doubt they care about our opinions of them much.
Furthermore, Bush has been subjected to immense amounts of bile and ridicule from his various detractors, both on and off the net, and seems to be doing OK.
On the main subject, I think the prospects for cybermobs turning people into pariahs like this are limited. It'll lose its novelty, people will stop caring; possibly it'll become the next spam, with angry self-righteous guardians of good conduct mass-emailing people about the misdeeds of the local youth. We'll become nostalgic for the days our inboxes were filled with nigerian account scams and penis enlargement ads instead of young people failing to keep their pets in line or damaging traffic lights. Spam filters will adjust, forcing us to mutate even more of our language to things like "v@nd4lizm" and "d0g p00" and "@ntis0cial y00f" whenever we don't want our e-mails to be autodeleted as soon as they're received. Truly, the future will be grim indeed.
I dunno. I think they simply wouldn't care. I doubt your average Mullah has ever read a blog in his life, and I doubt they care about our opinions of them much.
Just for fun, I did a photoshop once of the Ayatollah Khomeini as a underpants gnome. For some odd reason, this Ayatollah gnome was one of the first images that would come up when you did a 'Khomeini' search on google.
Of course, the Ayatollah is past caring about these things, but I got some e-mails and a comment from his fans, who were all located in Britain. They said I should stop making fun of their great leader, or some such nonsense. Then, my 15 minutes of fame were over and google found another khomeini image.
Zealots have one thing in common - they can't laugh at themselves and they have no sense of humor. That's probably why they're zealots. They really hate it when we make fun of them, which is why we should do it more often.
This is the first link you get after Googling "Khomeini Gnome". Perhaps it's not a coincedence that the poster there is named Mary too.