I'm quite torn: I simply can't decide what portion of this post I'm most captivated by. Is it the fact that John knows the exact date from over four years ago that he was booted from facebook? Maybe it's the feat of name dropping a whopping nine different people (I think.. I got dizzy counting) while more or less telling a story about saving a flat file with commas in it. It could be the fact that I just found out that Scoble was a pioneer in the fight for the open web while almost every time I've crossed paths with him in the last several years he's been dry humping a brand new buzzworthy social media platform to death. In the end, though, I'm pretty sure I've settled on the idea that yesterday on what I assume is a professional style radiopodcast thing a number of grown men spent a measurable amount of time arguing about how potentially fair or totally unfair it was that one of them got banned by facebook and also whether heather in 7th period likes one of them.
The only downside of the whole thing is the part where he goes on a broken spirited nihilistic rant about how hopeless everything is while suggesting I may be a social pariah for not having a facebook account.
He and I clearly have a somewhat different perspective on the world, but I am sympathetic to several of the issues he raises. It seems most of his despair revolves around the sense of having "lost" and being overtaken by events. He responds by saying screw it I just don't give a shit about my principles because they aren't working out for me. But the world ebs and flows, and more importantly it needs some people to take a few principled stands about what they believe in and remind people about issues even when not personally advantageous.
Consider what became of the 90's cypherpunk visions as they were soundly crushed by a new millennium bent on ubiquitous private tracking, massive government wiretaps and swiss cheese security. Who would have guessed such an ice age of uncoolness would thaw out in a world where wikileaks was the story of the year, people split dinner with me using money a russian teenager created using a cluster of high performance crypto gear and people organized revolutions online.
There's certainly an irony to the idea that such inexorable privatization of "the web" has occurred within the last 4 years that there's no point in even trying to effect any future change in a positive direction. My only real take away from this article is that if you are a Scoble-magnitude tech pundit then you are pretty much forced to use proprietary tools to maximize your audience. It's a bit like reality TV stars who have to join a trashy television program to get the attention they crave—it's a shortcut to a certain end, but it's not the way work that matters is done.
The only downside of the whole thing is the part where he goes on a broken spirited nihilistic rant about how hopeless everything is while suggesting I may be a social pariah for not having a facebook account.
He and I clearly have a somewhat different perspective on the world, but I am sympathetic to several of the issues he raises. It seems most of his despair revolves around the sense of having "lost" and being overtaken by events. He responds by saying screw it I just don't give a shit about my principles because they aren't working out for me. But the world ebs and flows, and more importantly it needs some people to take a few principled stands about what they believe in and remind people about issues even when not personally advantageous.
Consider what became of the 90's cypherpunk visions as they were soundly crushed by a new millennium bent on ubiquitous private tracking, massive government wiretaps and swiss cheese security. Who would have guessed such an ice age of uncoolness would thaw out in a world where wikileaks was the story of the year, people split dinner with me using money a russian teenager created using a cluster of high performance crypto gear and people organized revolutions online.
Giving up is boring.