Privacy v Progress: A Compromise?

Forty-five degrees outside and raining.  Grey skies of course, and the joggers in my neighborhood are out on the highways near the Super One Foods running through the rain at what appears to be a pace unconcerned with the precipitation.  They were all covered in apparently waterproof clothing all bright yellows an red florescent.  I for one am at home enjoying the heat and dry.  I had another self-heated MRE for breakfast: chicken noodles and vegetables like peas and carrots.

I had a great night Saturday.  Henry invited me to attend a small diner with some of his friends>  We had a sit down vegetarian meal.  There was plenty of food and conversation.  I even introduced Jeff to my sci fi poem and sent him a copy by email.  He laughed when we read it out loud and told me how crazy I am for coming up with something like that.  Renee said I should write and entire book based on the sci fi poem.  Overall it got a good reception with Henry's guests last night after dinner.  I was happy, even if I seem a little crazy.

The risk a creative writer takes is to be thought of as crazy until commercial success is at hand.   Then suddenly the writer goes from crazy to genius.  It must be a very circular evolution from crazy to genius. The two "make full circle" when a great deal of effort an sweat are applied to the enterprise of writing books whether they be novels or poems.  Poems come easily to me sometimes, but then there is the inevitable need to refine and edit all types of "writing for profit" efforts.  If it wasn't so damned hard to be coherent over an extended literary effort then it would be great fun from beginning to end.  As it is now, the most fun is the brainstorming for ideas and the initial rush to get everything important on paper -- and it all seems so important.  It is often hard to remember just how that line I am preoccupied with, how did it go when I was thinking about it just a coupe of hours ago?  Where do all these words com from?  ...and Is there a limit of how many combination s of words make sense ie is there a limit to the number of coherent works that can be created based on on language?  Does music face the same problems?  Will there be a point where we must revolutionize creative arts because the limited number of note or word combination s begin to repeat?

Well hell, there's  a whole 'nuther book there....  I have some good ideas and I wonder if I will ever have the opportunity to publish all these notions and conjecture without having to earn an advanced degree first.

Anyway, its raining today and not deadly cold so I may put om my rainproof clothing and go a-picture takin later on today.  I like to make photographs of Louisiana landscapes in the rain.  I call them thought shadows.  I run a completely different website for my photos.  For that I use a smallish red red Kodak digital camera.  It was very inexpensive to buy.  I also have a tripod to use whenever the need arises because the camera will also hold up to 2 hours of audio visual information.  It takes pictues that are adaquate for posting on this blog but not really for the ultra sharp HD photos and videos that are so popular these days.

Be sure to checkout my blog, Thought Shadows if you like to browse photos and videos.  I will most likely upload a lot of photographs to PIcassa and maybe even youtube.  This WYSIWYG technology makes it so easy to create a creative monster of interlinked pages.

It is still hard for me to believe the extent to which free storage space is available for the internet, not to even mention the mountain of free software.  For example, Audacity is a free application for sound editing and manipulation.  It is really awesome when you consider that it is free.  If you want you can doante money to their efforts in programming free applications, or not, it works exactly the same either way.  I have yet to understand that approach to marketing but apparently it is an effeective technique. It is also striking how much people are willing to trade elements of privacy in order to use free applications.

Trends in surrender of elements of personal privacy and the fact that most people do not even read the Terms and Conditions required to activate the "free" software is astounding!  I am guilty of the same behavior.  As I add applications such as iTunes, facebook, and Audacity I glance over the section headers and trudge forward with the download.  I base this behavior on the doctrine of benevolent care taking by the corporations and individuals that write the code I need and desire.  Not everyone has that brand of faith not even on Sundays .  When it comes to trusting Big Business it is easy to become a little paranoid about what Terms and Conditions were really in the electronic box which requires the consumers acceptable expectations of breach of privacy and subjection to Real Simple Copyright infringement.

This is how we usher in the 21st Century.  I wonder if I will live long enough to get a glimpse of where all this free storage space will end up.  The shedding of aspects of privacy:  what do we have to hide bout our online behaviors that isn't so hidden anymore?  how long will geeks like me continue to purchase quanta of Progress with the knowledge that what we do is potential under minute surveillance by an artificial intelligence.  Could it be that the artificial intelligence is learning more about us than we know about ourselves?  Like I said this will be an astounding proposal that homo sapiens will analyze rather than simply ignore what is the vast fields of data about human behavior. No one human can process all that information without the aid of a really fast and smart computer. 

Hey I think I just thought of another notion in sci fi similar to ideas by Isaac Asimov.  What are we supposed to do with all this data being generated besides learning how to market with laser-like precision and continue to sell everyone stuff that need at the very moment that they realize they need such things?  Then there is the "tail wagging the dog" syndrome when demand is based on "subliminal" persuasion and the demand that does not originate in the experience of the consumer, but in the collective mind of data analysts (human or electronic.)  They will be capable of engineering an individual's life experience by manipulating the purse strings of the masses who have yet to awaken, or prefer the shadows dancing on the cave walls to the blinding sunlight of all that information we generate each day.  It is far from garbage. 

We go on thinking that our activities online are no less permanent than the sands and the empty expressions and counter statements that comfort us all so much through each day, and we hope, and we have faith in the benevolence of the natural and supernatural worlds.  This is nothing new. It has always been that way.  "Cycles of surrender and Leaps of Faith" is all there ever really has been for humanity.  Is that so depressing?  Let's go back to my cave.  We can sit next to the fire and watch the shadows dance on the walls.