the noble platypus

My cousin, Christina, started this AWESOME website, Noble Platypus. As she puts it, "Popular Culture really can churn out some interesting kinds of characters. Why not use this silly creature to celebrate all these oddities and stereotypes that flood our life experiences." And that is exactly what she has done, by turning the platypus into a colourful canvas and painting a very vivid picture of how weird our culture/lifestyles/world can be. I love browsing through all the different characters. The Noble Platypus reminds me to see the humour in our mainstream culture. So often I get really stressed out about some aspect of our world. There's nothing like a platypus to cheer you up!

yay!

So, I was just reading Jessica's blog Life in Elgin and I noticed she added me to her blogroll links. I'm excited because nobody's ever linked me before (I don't think...) and because I read her blog pretty much every day, since she is a far more prolific blogger than I am. And, at risk for sounding like a total nerd right now, I sometimes look at her blogroll and think, "I wish my blog was on there." And then I would sigh and think about updating my blog, but inevitably I'd get distracted and read hers some more instead.

I enjoy Life in Elgin because Jessica always finds the coolest things on the 'net. I discovered Bits and Bobbins through her, the webstoreEtsy through her, and Wardrobe Remix through her. All fun, creative, inspiring stuff. Love it!

Anyway, this is a really long way of saying thanks, Jessica! Favour returned!

in your face!(book)

Well, I've been really slacking off on the blog front lately. So much for my New Year's resolution about two posts a week. What was I thinking? In good resolution news, though, I have yet to cave on my cravings and eat candy...that's got to count for something!

I come here today because I was recently made aware of some rather disturbing information about Facebook. My bro, Aaron, did a really great job summing up this disturbing information on his Facebook page, so instead of summing it up myself, I am presenting Aaron's words to you:

BIG BROTHER IS READING THIS NOTE
By Aaron King

Sign up to Facebook and you become a free walking, talking advert for Blockbuster or Coke, extolling the virtues of these brands to your friends. We are seeing the commodification of human relationships, the extraction of capitalistic value from friendships.

That's from Tom Hodgkinson, in his article about Facebook in the Guardian. Many a journalistic rant has been directed at Facebook - for a site that has 59 million members, it seems everyone loves to hate it. The Guardian article however, differs from the usual opinion pieces. Rather, it's a fine piece of muckraking journalism, providing previously hushed up bits of information about everyone's favourite online social network. Information like this: "There are only three board members on Facebook, and they are [PayPal co-founder and CEO Peter] Thiel, [Facebook co-creator Mark] Zuckerberg and a third investor called Jim Breyer from a venture capital firm called Accel Partners." Let's take a look at Peter Thiel first:

Thiel's philosophy, briefly, is this: since the 17th century, certain enlightened thinkers have been taking the world away from the old-fashioned nature-bound life, and towards a new virtual world where we have conquered nature. Value now exists in imaginary things. Thiel says that PayPal was motivated by this belief: that you can find value not in real manufactured objects, but in the relations between human beings. PayPal was a way of moving money around the world with no restriction. . . Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can you make money out of friendship? Can you create communities free of national boundaries - and then sell Coca-Cola to them? . . .Thiel is also on the board of advisers of something called the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. From its fantastical website, the following: "The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. There are several technologies ... heading in this direction ... Artificial Intelligence ... direct brain-computer interfaces ... genetic engineering ... different technologies which, if they reached a threshold level of sophistication, would enable the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence." So by his own admission, Thiel is trying to destroy the real world, which he also calls "nature", and install a virtual world in its place, and it is in this context that we must view the rise of Facebook. Facebook is a deliberate experiment in global manipulation, and Thiel is a bright young thing in the neoconservative pantheon, with a penchant for far-out techno-utopian fantasies.

I'm inclined to agree with Hodgkinson when he says that Thiel is "not someone I want to help get any richer." But even though I'm not too hot on the idea of unintentionally taking part in "a deliberate experiment in global manipulation" with the inevitable intent of destroying nature and replacing it with a virtual world, this could still be dismissed as a disagreeable, creepy 1984-esque philosophy having given birth to something that's mostly harmless. And right now, yes, I'd say that's exactly what it is. But the article isn't over yet. Here's a look at who's paying for Facebook:

Facebook's most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock's senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What's In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA. The US intelligence community became so excited by the possibilities of new technology and the innovations being made in the private sector, that in 1999 they set up their own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, which "identifies and partners with companies developing cutting-edge technologies to help deliver these solutions to the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence Community (IC) to further their missions"

I must confess, I never bother reading the privacy policies when I'm signing up for ANYTHING, and Facebook was no different - I just blindly clicked "I Agree." But, knowing that (albeit indirectly) the CIA has invested in Facebook, here's a look at that policy:

"By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States ... We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Facebook service or using the Facebook name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies."

Looks like George Orwell was only off by twenty years (Facebook was launched in 2004). So what am I going to do about it? I use Facebook more than e-mail, and I don't even know most of [my Facebook friend's] phone numbers. As well, the privacy policy informs us that "When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information." Meaning that all our information is being saved somewhere.

I'm not very comfortable with this, but I think I'm also being a little paranoid. After all, why should it matter if the CIA and Facebook's many corporate investors (Wal-Mart, Coca Cola, etc.) know that one of my favourite books is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon? What's the worst thay can do with that information?

Of course, I have noticed that much of the advertising on Facebook is tailored to my interests - unless everyone gets advertisements for cheap Modest Mouse concert tickets? But we only wind up feeding the corporate machine if we pay attention to the ads -- advertise all they like, if we don't buy, they get nothing from us.

For now, I'll stay on Facebook, because my friends are important to me. But feel free to use e-mail to get in touch with me.
********************

My other bro, Christopher, cancelled his Facebook account shortly after hearing about this corporate invasion on his personal relationships. I felt relieved that I had never signed up in the first place. I can't tell you how many times I've been tempted to, though. Everyone and their grandfather is on Facebook these days, and ever since everyone's favourite social network hit the mainstream, I've noticed that nobody uses e-mail anymore, beyond the occasional "Sign up for Facebook" form message. As a result, it's like all my friends and acquaintances don't even bother keeping in touch with me anymore, which, admittedly really peeves me off and is actually a huge contributing factor to why I never signed up for Facebook (a sort of childish "If you're not going to e-mail me, than I'm not going to Facebook you!" type reaction). That and I had an issue with a stalker-type character on a previous social networking site. Not cool.

Anyway, even though I was personally unconnected to Facebook, my first reaction to the Guardian article was anger and indignation. There are so few spaces (one could argue no spaces) in our lives anymore that remain commercial free, and are allowed to simply exist without some giant corporate slime ball sticking their hand in it. Now obviously the internet is not the place to go if you don't want to be bombarded with ads, but that isn't the issue here, and that's why this is so bad. This is invasive corporate control, because they have the rights to all your information, your connections, your relationships. They get to scan and read and save all your interests, ideas and plans, and they get to sell it to other companies who would like nothing more than to physically reconnect your neurons so all you can think about is Coca-Cola.

I haven't even touched on the fact that Peter Thiel's whole idea of a virtual world is creepy and unsettling. And while that in itself is pretty far-out and ridiculous, it is a little disconcerting to know that 59 million people have also dealt directly into his hand.

I guess the thing about this that ultimately bothers me is that in this day and age when we need to reconnect with the earth, when we need to reconnect (personally) with each other, when we need to stop buying stuff and focus on living fulfilling lives that are fulfilling regardless of what we have and earn, Facebook's wealthy capitalist owners come along and take a giant step backwards, and pull us backwards with them. It all feels so frustrating and discouraging sometimes.

I would urge everyone out there to go and cancel their Facebook account, except I know how hard that is when it is the only way your friends communicate. And this is why it's discouraging, I guess...Facebook has changed the way people communicate, so people won't cancel their accounts, and that is how corporations keep their control. No matter how questionable, creepy or invasive it becomes, it still boils down to that question of, "Sure, it's bad, but what would I do without Facebook?" and so the corporations score another point, happily becoming a little more in control of how we live, what we do, and how we see ourselves.

If you won't cancel your Facebook account, at least start reading privacy policies before you sign up for something. If Facebook is getting away with blatantly reading, saving and dishing out your personal information, you can bet there will soon be a slew of others chomping at the bit to get away with the same thing. Don't let them.

And hey, if you can get your friends into the idea of good old fashioned letter writing, that would be cool, too. After all, I think we'd all agree that it is WAY cooler getting a letter in the mail than a three-line fragmented paragraph on your Facebook wall any day...