You are in trouble...and so am I
First off, I am an inherently private person. For that reason, among others, I have never had a facebook account and never plan to do so. I have been migrating to and using encrypted e-mail and encouraging others to do the same. I have real world friends and relationships in lieu of "electronic friends" so that my personal life is not splayed open on the world wide web for any and all to see. Further, I have been slowly removing myself from the trappings of societal programming disseminated by those whom I view as propagandists masquerading as television networks and social media companies.
Now, on to why we are all in trouble...After having watched the large majority of my friends and family obliviously falling victim to mass surveillance and societal programming I took it upon myself to try and warn them of what I see in the world. Doing so, I have probably become known to them as a wing-nut, conspiracy theorist. It is interesting to note, however, that many of the things about which I talked to them 5-7 years ago had already been, or have come to be, proven factually true...Gulf of Tonkin, Bohemian Grove, MKUltra, CIA drug smuggling, etc... One of the things I routinely warned them about the most was the astonishing level of surveillance of the populace that was (and still is) occurring worldwide and which was confirmed in 2013 by Mr. Snowden's famous whistle-blowing leak.
It saddens me greatly to see that the majority of humanity simply does not seem to care that every facet of communication, whether it is written, oral, or electronic, is now being monitored, recorded, and stored in gigantic databases. Along with this is the fact that bio-metric databases are also being created with finger print data, facial recognition data, iris scan data, gait data, et al. The narcissism prevalent in so many people and effectuated online today only feeds this process as people post pictures of themselves and "tag" others in those photos thereby aiding the creation of these databases.
To me, the question that begs to be asked is: "to what end are these databases of our most personal inherent traits and our intimate and private communications being built?"
I personally, will leave it to you, dear reader, to ponder, consider, and derive your own answer to the question. For me, however, I believe that we are all in trouble due to the danger inherent in allowing governments to have this type of power over and information about each of us. This, I feel, is a threat to humanity itself.
Now, to those of you bright enough to have recognized the fact that despite my concerns and feelings, I did actually punch that reviled POST button in the nose so that you might now be reading this prose, I come full circle back to my self-psychoanalysis and ask: So, why now and here with Steemit?
It's a simple answer: Because I hope that by supporting and being part of a better alternative, and by some miracle of fate, that Facebook eventually goes the way of Pets.com, Yahoo Auctions, and Beenz which are all now in the dustbin of internet history. Once all of the companies exposed by Snowden as being complicit it giving away our information have found there way into that dustbin I, for one, will start to feel more comfortable.
I look forward to having thoughtful exchanges via these posts with those of you who may share my thoughts and even with those of you who may not.
Very good post. Thank you. Upvoted and followed.
Great first post.... Welcome to Steemit.
Hey welcome to steemit. You seem really interesting, I enjoyed reading your post and feel like I could disagree in a number ways, I do on another hand totally agree.. I mean many of these social media and tagging techniques and such can and have been very useful for small business and artists and alternative media and on and on, like most technology it is a double edged sword, though I do agree with you that there is a very dark nefarious side and it is kinda scary to think about and it is sad more people don't care or pay much if any attention to it.
Good luck with your efforts here on steemit and elsewhere! Upvoted and I followed you.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reflect. Too many people simply have a knee-jerk reaction to these types of things. Probably because it is really hard to think about and consider the dark/nefarious side of googe/facebook/etc... I can't argue that, to some, there are benefits to using those types of companies. However, it would be nice if our personal information and communications were not part of the business model. Having it that way makes it very tempting to a government to snoop by penalizing or rewarding private companies who cooperate. Since death by government (democide) is by far the leading cause of death for humankind, I'd feel much better if they didn't know all there was to know about all of us.
You're welcome. I agree. Though I kind of go about it with the mindset of, anything I put online is public information. There is no privacy on the internet.
Kind of like if you decide to walk outside of your house naked, people will see you and you either care or don't.
Almost everything is stored, and.. I don't really see a way around that, though maybe technology will solve the problem and somehow allow for more privacy on the internet future. But for now.. i just treat it like everything is public.. Cause if you're a good enough hacker, or the government.. It is. Heh.
Totally understand and I look forward to reading more of your post. I am so not understanding to under stand while a person will state that they understand and have no idea of what they are communicating to the authority of a fraudulent status thus giving power to others instead of being responsible as a human with a brain for ourselves.