The Circle: What rang true for you?
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1timspalding
I'm starting this new topic because I feel that, in our nitpicking about improbably technologies and characters we didn't like, we've missed the most important measure of the book--the things that rang true for you. Since it clearly isn't a novel about characterization, this largely means what rings true to you in the social response to technology--how the Circle's portrayal of technological and social-technological* trends seems true now, or seems like "where we're going."
I think both the present and the future are important. Utopia and dystopia aren't really futurism. They use the future--or the far-away--as a foil to the present. Tacitus' Germania isn't really about the Germans; he doesn't praise (or perhaps invent) the Germans' marital fidelity for anthropological reasons, but to comment on contemporary Roman society. The inhabitant's of Moore's Utopia make their chamber pots out of gold because Moore wants to contrast them with his countrymen. Dystopia works the same, flipped, I suppose.
I'm going to come up with a few. Perhaps you can add, or disagree.
*As I've said before, social software is equal parts society and software. LibraryThing in particular is not a feature set, but a community and a feature set pushing back and forth against each other constantly.
I think both the present and the future are important. Utopia and dystopia aren't really futurism. They use the future--or the far-away--as a foil to the present. Tacitus' Germania isn't really about the Germans; he doesn't praise (or perhaps invent) the Germans' marital fidelity for anthropological reasons, but to comment on contemporary Roman society. The inhabitant's of Moore's Utopia make their chamber pots out of gold because Moore wants to contrast them with his countrymen. Dystopia works the same, flipped, I suppose.
I'm going to come up with a few. Perhaps you can add, or disagree.
*As I've said before, social software is equal parts society and software. LibraryThing in particular is not a feature set, but a community and a feature set pushing back and forth against each other constantly.
2timspalding
Rating. I loved the part where Francis wanted Mae to give his sexual performance a number rating--and the denouement, where he insists that her final number was better than her attempt to nuance the topic with language.
As many here know, this is a particular bête noire of mine. I think ratings are mostly crap for deciding between books. Whether or not they are, however, I think they are broadly corrosive of deep conversation. LibraryThing represents an old model of social interaction around taste--that people want to review things, and reviews aren't a word or two. By and large we've moved to an online universe of five-star ratings, less-than-binary "likes," and contextless "shares."
I find this stifling and dystopic already. As my friend Josh Christie put it recently on Twitter, "Today, try and think critically about some media without giving it a letter grade, a number, or a star rating."
More and more, this isn't just books and movies. It's people. "Hot or Not" was an early example, but that was a stupid web trick compared to Lulu. Have you heard of Lulu—1 million users, including 1/3 of college-age women belong to a site where you rate men you've dated, with two million reviews already. Yes, you get a star rating. Oh, and your dates' estimation of your penis size is now online. ( See this TLDR review of it http://www.onthemedia.org/story/its-rating-men/ ) And, of course, it has what previous people-rating systems didn't--a hard tie into Facebook, so the integrity of the system is assured, with both raters and ratings tied to real people.
De-complexification of social interaction. Closely related to ratings are the reduction in conversational complexity inherent in "smile," "frown,"* "friend" and the various social ranking systems in the novel. With Jaron Lanier (You Are Not a Gadget), I do feel these user-interface conventions are dumbing down and flattening our social world. As Lanier writes, simplistic social categories like that are how you explain social life to an autistic person; now we live out a big part of our social life using tools that operate on autistic grounds. Sure, people find ways to subvert the system, but it trickles down and out.
Unification of online identity. I think this is the core thing going on with the circle. Facebook has shown the way. The world of "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog" is gone; now the world knows exactly who you are, tied to a Facebook identity you can hardly get rid of. Other services have glommed onto that assurance. You can't sign up for Spotify without a Facebook account. You can't even LOOK at some popular clothing sites without signing in via Facebook.
This rang the truest for me. This is coming. It's already here. All Facebook needs to do is wait, as the entire online world gloms onto the clear advantages of tracing everything you do to a single, table and largely trustable identity. It does or can solve so many problems--passwords, shopping carts, online rudeness, marketing channels, etc. And as with many social technologies, it gets stronger and better as it grows.
Also, as with many social technologies, the important thing is to get to scale. Once you have scale, you can turn the screws. I do see a day when we pay for most of our purchases with out Facebook account, or its equivalent, and, of course, Facebook owns, processes and sells the data accumulated in this way. In fact, this is already happening in a spit-and-chewing-gum way, as a whole industry has sprung up to connect Facebook accounts, emails, credit cards and other social data. The only real hope lies in the proliferation of systems--Amazon, Google and Apple all wanting you to use their systems. But identity is close to a natural monopoly; players will drop out.
Mandatory socialization. This is a big trend in technology companies, and it's spreading to other parts of the economy. Time was when your job was your job, your life your life. Startup life changes that. It's certainly true for LibraryThing--my life and my job are extensively merged, and our resume-calls ask people to tell us about their food preferences and outside interests. Mind you, I think this is a good thing. I think the work/life dichotomy is flawed and even bogus. But it has its protective value, and it's something that can go bad, for sure.
This theme is everywhere in the novel, of course. The Circle provides meals for everyone, and parties. Attendance at parties is "semi-mandatory." CE employees are encouraged to become part of their customers' social circles, answer their questionnaires and, in turn, are invited to stay at their houses, etc. This isn't that far from current reality. Google does a lot of this--keeping people on "campus" as much as possible and, well, LibraryThing staff are indeed encouraged to participate on the site.**
Transparency. The novel picked up on a general claim--that transparency makes everything better. This notion is everywhere in our culture now: that it doesn't matter how much money people spend on political causes so long as it's "transparent"; that legislatures and courtrooms need camera; that politicians need to tweet, etc. Much more to say, obviously.
No delete button. This one's obvious. I was almost disappointed that Mae's hand job video didn't pop up later in the story, as it threatened to. But the overall truth of this was clear. Moore's law (or perhaps "Kryder's Law"), Big Data, the unification of online identity and other factors have conspired to create a world without a delete key.
As a side note, a person we work with in another company recently wrote us that he couldn't find the origins of a particular business conversation because he had deleted the emails. Abby and I basically responded at the same time "Who fuck deletes emails!?!"
The gamification of shelter allotment. One of the few times I laughed out loud was, "Homelessness could be helped or fixed, she knew, once the gamification of shelter allotment and public housing in general was complete."
The Circle wasn't a ramification dystopia--that throw-away line goes more toward the techno-utopian idea that social problems are all amenable to a technological solution. But someone has made a gamification dystopia, called "Sight." You should see it now: http://vimeo.com/46304267
Okay, that's what I got for now. I think I could go on for pages and pages.
* "Frown" is actually an improvement. There is no frown on Facebook, and indeed I find it a rather frown-free world. That, perhaps, has more to do with the general reality that most people don't like to disagree or question. The early internet was a wrestle of ideas, often veering into the belief that only ideas matter; that's been largely reduced to sharing some online piece with your friends, who all agreed with it already.
** LibraryThing staff should create a thread about what parts of The Circle rang true for them in LibraryThing. Will they? Would you?
As many here know, this is a particular bête noire of mine. I think ratings are mostly crap for deciding between books. Whether or not they are, however, I think they are broadly corrosive of deep conversation. LibraryThing represents an old model of social interaction around taste--that people want to review things, and reviews aren't a word or two. By and large we've moved to an online universe of five-star ratings, less-than-binary "likes," and contextless "shares."
I find this stifling and dystopic already. As my friend Josh Christie put it recently on Twitter, "Today, try and think critically about some media without giving it a letter grade, a number, or a star rating."
More and more, this isn't just books and movies. It's people. "Hot or Not" was an early example, but that was a stupid web trick compared to Lulu. Have you heard of Lulu—1 million users, including 1/3 of college-age women belong to a site where you rate men you've dated, with two million reviews already. Yes, you get a star rating. Oh, and your dates' estimation of your penis size is now online. ( See this TLDR review of it http://www.onthemedia.org/story/its-rating-men/ ) And, of course, it has what previous people-rating systems didn't--a hard tie into Facebook, so the integrity of the system is assured, with both raters and ratings tied to real people.
De-complexification of social interaction. Closely related to ratings are the reduction in conversational complexity inherent in "smile," "frown,"* "friend" and the various social ranking systems in the novel. With Jaron Lanier (You Are Not a Gadget), I do feel these user-interface conventions are dumbing down and flattening our social world. As Lanier writes, simplistic social categories like that are how you explain social life to an autistic person; now we live out a big part of our social life using tools that operate on autistic grounds. Sure, people find ways to subvert the system, but it trickles down and out.
Unification of online identity. I think this is the core thing going on with the circle. Facebook has shown the way. The world of "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog" is gone; now the world knows exactly who you are, tied to a Facebook identity you can hardly get rid of. Other services have glommed onto that assurance. You can't sign up for Spotify without a Facebook account. You can't even LOOK at some popular clothing sites without signing in via Facebook.
This rang the truest for me. This is coming. It's already here. All Facebook needs to do is wait, as the entire online world gloms onto the clear advantages of tracing everything you do to a single, table and largely trustable identity. It does or can solve so many problems--passwords, shopping carts, online rudeness, marketing channels, etc. And as with many social technologies, it gets stronger and better as it grows.
Also, as with many social technologies, the important thing is to get to scale. Once you have scale, you can turn the screws. I do see a day when we pay for most of our purchases with out Facebook account, or its equivalent, and, of course, Facebook owns, processes and sells the data accumulated in this way. In fact, this is already happening in a spit-and-chewing-gum way, as a whole industry has sprung up to connect Facebook accounts, emails, credit cards and other social data. The only real hope lies in the proliferation of systems--Amazon, Google and Apple all wanting you to use their systems. But identity is close to a natural monopoly; players will drop out.
Mandatory socialization. This is a big trend in technology companies, and it's spreading to other parts of the economy. Time was when your job was your job, your life your life. Startup life changes that. It's certainly true for LibraryThing--my life and my job are extensively merged, and our resume-calls ask people to tell us about their food preferences and outside interests. Mind you, I think this is a good thing. I think the work/life dichotomy is flawed and even bogus. But it has its protective value, and it's something that can go bad, for sure.
This theme is everywhere in the novel, of course. The Circle provides meals for everyone, and parties. Attendance at parties is "semi-mandatory." CE employees are encouraged to become part of their customers' social circles, answer their questionnaires and, in turn, are invited to stay at their houses, etc. This isn't that far from current reality. Google does a lot of this--keeping people on "campus" as much as possible and, well, LibraryThing staff are indeed encouraged to participate on the site.**
Transparency. The novel picked up on a general claim--that transparency makes everything better. This notion is everywhere in our culture now: that it doesn't matter how much money people spend on political causes so long as it's "transparent"; that legislatures and courtrooms need camera; that politicians need to tweet, etc. Much more to say, obviously.
No delete button. This one's obvious. I was almost disappointed that Mae's hand job video didn't pop up later in the story, as it threatened to. But the overall truth of this was clear. Moore's law (or perhaps "Kryder's Law"), Big Data, the unification of online identity and other factors have conspired to create a world without a delete key.
As a side note, a person we work with in another company recently wrote us that he couldn't find the origins of a particular business conversation because he had deleted the emails. Abby and I basically responded at the same time "Who fuck deletes emails!?!"
The gamification of shelter allotment. One of the few times I laughed out loud was, "Homelessness could be helped or fixed, she knew, once the gamification of shelter allotment and public housing in general was complete."
The Circle wasn't a ramification dystopia--that throw-away line goes more toward the techno-utopian idea that social problems are all amenable to a technological solution. But someone has made a gamification dystopia, called "Sight." You should see it now: http://vimeo.com/46304267
Okay, that's what I got for now. I think I could go on for pages and pages.
* "Frown" is actually an improvement. There is no frown on Facebook, and indeed I find it a rather frown-free world. That, perhaps, has more to do with the general reality that most people don't like to disagree or question. The early internet was a wrestle of ideas, often veering into the belief that only ideas matter; that's been largely reduced to sharing some online piece with your friends, who all agreed with it already.
** LibraryThing staff should create a thread about what parts of The Circle rang true for them in LibraryThing. Will they? Would you?
4Jesse_wiedinmyer
"Frown" is actually an improvement. There is no frown on Facebook, and indeed I find it a rather frown-free world.
Social Fixer was asked to remove their "unfriend" tracking portion of the app by FB because they felt that it led to a negative experience for the user.
Social Fixer was asked to remove their "unfriend" tracking portion of the app by FB because they felt that it led to a negative experience for the user.
5timspalding
Guffaw.
The example that proves the rule. I get more grief for that than almost anything I've done on the site!
The example that proves the rule. I get more grief for that than almost anything I've done on the site!
6Jesse_wiedinmyer
The early internet was a wrestle of ideas, often veering into the belief that only ideas matter; that's been largely reduced to sharing some online piece with your friends, who all agreed with it already.
As a secondary thought, I've increasingly found FaceBook to be about the same thing my Hotmail account was when I stopped using it for much of anything. Lots of forwarded junk (though luckily much less spam). It's sort of interesting to me the dynamics on "unfriending," because I very rarely do it. All the same, my list has pretty much shrank to people that will largely agree with what I post. And that's probably because whilst I won't drop people readily, those that disagree with me probably have little compunction about doing the same.
As a secondary thought, I've increasingly found FaceBook to be about the same thing my Hotmail account was when I stopped using it for much of anything. Lots of forwarded junk (though luckily much less spam). It's sort of interesting to me the dynamics on "unfriending," because I very rarely do it. All the same, my list has pretty much shrank to people that will largely agree with what I post. And that's probably because whilst I won't drop people readily, those that disagree with me probably have little compunction about doing the same.
7qebo
2:
Well, accepting that “most important measure of the book” = the points that you most want to discuss...
Mandatory socialization.
LibraryThing is a tiny company, so personal compatibilities are important, and it is your company so you get to run it as you please. My experience with non-social tech companies is that colleagues are generally tolerant of introversion, highly task oriented and internally motivated, often working odd extra hours as creativity and obsession strike, and a soap opera of relationships occurs naturally. There’s not a clear divide of work and life, but this is because people like what they’re doing, work=play, not because the company mandates attendance at parties. When it becomes a job, well that’s when management needs to start worrying.
outside interests
Which require time outside.
LibraryThing staff are indeed encouraged to participate on the site.
This makes sense, in part because access to you and other employees is a feature of LibraryThing, and in part because designers ought to use their own products.
Well, accepting that “most important measure of the book” = the points that you most want to discuss...
Mandatory socialization.
LibraryThing is a tiny company, so personal compatibilities are important, and it is your company so you get to run it as you please. My experience with non-social tech companies is that colleagues are generally tolerant of introversion, highly task oriented and internally motivated, often working odd extra hours as creativity and obsession strike, and a soap opera of relationships occurs naturally. There’s not a clear divide of work and life, but this is because people like what they’re doing, work=play, not because the company mandates attendance at parties. When it becomes a job, well that’s when management needs to start worrying.
outside interests
Which require time outside.
LibraryThing staff are indeed encouraged to participate on the site.
This makes sense, in part because access to you and other employees is a feature of LibraryThing, and in part because designers ought to use their own products.
8TooBusyReading
When I first started working for a major corporation in the mid-80s, we had mandatory socialization masquerading as "team building," and I hated it. My co-workers and I worked in software and systems development, not generally a hotbed of extremely social people, but I guess that is why the powers-that-be thought we needed team building. It has become worse as time has gone on.
And I always feel a little twinge of guilt when I don't "like" a friend's FB post, as if it were a negative reflection on that person. Unfortunately, it is the best way to know how some of my geographically distant family is doing.
My mother, who hasn't quite got the hang of using her desktop after several years of trying, thinks that some of the sites that she visits requires that she sign in using FB even when they don't, because the FB sign-in is right there in her face, and she doesn't notice the alternatives.
I think that part of what makes The Circle so interesting is so much of it is just an extension of what we are already doing that leaping forward to Egger's ideas of how things could be is not that big of a leap.
And I always feel a little twinge of guilt when I don't "like" a friend's FB post, as if it were a negative reflection on that person. Unfortunately, it is the best way to know how some of my geographically distant family is doing.
My mother, who hasn't quite got the hang of using her desktop after several years of trying, thinks that some of the sites that she visits requires that she sign in using FB even when they don't, because the FB sign-in is right there in her face, and she doesn't notice the alternatives.
I think that part of what makes The Circle so interesting is so much of it is just an extension of what we are already doing that leaping forward to Egger's ideas of how things could be is not that big of a leap.
9timspalding
I worked for an advertising firm in the 90s. They had the Zima account. So every Friday afternoon it was all you can drink… Zima. Man, that stuff is nasty.
10TooBusyReading
>9 timspalding:
OT, but my husband *loved* that stuff back then. Now I think he would agree that it is pretty nasty. I don't know if it is even manufactured anymore.
My company used to have a fairly loose drinking policy, even provided alcohol on the corporate jet (passengers only, of course), but then they got very strict before they announced the policy change. We went to a group luncheon in honor of an employee, and most of us had a single glass of wine. When we got back, a senior management person told us we could all be fired for that.
I have no problem with the rule, but announce it if you expect it to be followed.
The rules and "guidelines" kept getting stricter at the Circle, all fun and games morphing into rigidity. Sure, I'll participate in the voluntary survey because you find me so special. Okay, but we expect you to complete x number of surveys per day. Ouch.
OT, but my husband *loved* that stuff back then. Now I think he would agree that it is pretty nasty. I don't know if it is even manufactured anymore.
My company used to have a fairly loose drinking policy, even provided alcohol on the corporate jet (passengers only, of course), but then they got very strict before they announced the policy change. We went to a group luncheon in honor of an employee, and most of us had a single glass of wine. When we got back, a senior management person told us we could all be fired for that.
I have no problem with the rule, but announce it if you expect it to be followed.
The rules and "guidelines" kept getting stricter at the Circle, all fun and games morphing into rigidity. Sure, I'll participate in the voluntary survey because you find me so special. Okay, but we expect you to complete x number of surveys per day. Ouch.
11bfister
What rang true:
Technological benevolence that is power-grabbing in disguise. It's played out both on employees who are SO lucky! to be working! for the Circle!! and are working themselves ragged without ever questioning the system, as well as on the users of their platform. I'm really sick of giant tech companies telling me how they are making my world better. (That Apple ad showing people gazing lovingly into screens while Apple tells us "this is what it's about" make me sick. So does Bill Gates's ability to determine the future of public education because he decides what to fund. That's not his call, it's not his expertise, and it's only possible because people like him do everything they can to avoid paying into public systems for making these decisions.) Come on, these companies are making a buck. It's my call whether it's good for me, and it's our call whether it improves society.
The way that corporate "philanthropy" or corporate overreach replaces what previously were considered public policies. That's intimated in the way that we can see people's lives falling apart because they can't afford health care, jobs are going away, and it's only mega-corporations that offer a vision of e pluribus unum, progress, and social well being. I think that plagiarism checker mentioned in another thread is a good example of this. Strip support for teachers who can detect and help students understand how to write about sources, but pay a corporation to check student work for plagiarism mechanically because it's better to cut a check to a company than pay and provide benefits to people. The irony, of course, is that the company that chastises students who plagiarize operates by ingesting the student's work into their machine without the student's agreement (except through a TOS they are told they are required to agree to). Becoming the voting booth makes all kinds of sense in this robber-barons-are-good-for-you way of organizing society.
The way Silicon Valley culture can appear to embrace hacker culture, ruthless monopoly, and new-agey bromides without imploding. It turned out in this story that the hacker had doubts, the new age yoda was sinister, and the ruthless monopolist was in charge. Which rings true to me.
The way that social platforms have built into them a certain kind of libertarian market fundamentalism that encourages us to think of our identities as a monetizable brand and our interactions as marketing. It's insidious and destructive and I see it everywhere, where we are feeding micropayments of ourselves into platforms that will mine our data, all in exchange for self-promotion opportunities. It's not that online is not as good as face to face so much as what this particular kind of online interaction assumes about humans as social beings.
Technological benevolence that is power-grabbing in disguise. It's played out both on employees who are SO lucky! to be working! for the Circle!! and are working themselves ragged without ever questioning the system, as well as on the users of their platform. I'm really sick of giant tech companies telling me how they are making my world better. (That Apple ad showing people gazing lovingly into screens while Apple tells us "this is what it's about" make me sick. So does Bill Gates's ability to determine the future of public education because he decides what to fund. That's not his call, it's not his expertise, and it's only possible because people like him do everything they can to avoid paying into public systems for making these decisions.) Come on, these companies are making a buck. It's my call whether it's good for me, and it's our call whether it improves society.
The way that corporate "philanthropy" or corporate overreach replaces what previously were considered public policies. That's intimated in the way that we can see people's lives falling apart because they can't afford health care, jobs are going away, and it's only mega-corporations that offer a vision of e pluribus unum, progress, and social well being. I think that plagiarism checker mentioned in another thread is a good example of this. Strip support for teachers who can detect and help students understand how to write about sources, but pay a corporation to check student work for plagiarism mechanically because it's better to cut a check to a company than pay and provide benefits to people. The irony, of course, is that the company that chastises students who plagiarize operates by ingesting the student's work into their machine without the student's agreement (except through a TOS they are told they are required to agree to). Becoming the voting booth makes all kinds of sense in this robber-barons-are-good-for-you way of organizing society.
The way Silicon Valley culture can appear to embrace hacker culture, ruthless monopoly, and new-agey bromides without imploding. It turned out in this story that the hacker had doubts, the new age yoda was sinister, and the ruthless monopolist was in charge. Which rings true to me.
The way that social platforms have built into them a certain kind of libertarian market fundamentalism that encourages us to think of our identities as a monetizable brand and our interactions as marketing. It's insidious and destructive and I see it everywhere, where we are feeding micropayments of ourselves into platforms that will mine our data, all in exchange for self-promotion opportunities. It's not that online is not as good as face to face so much as what this particular kind of online interaction assumes about humans as social beings.
12foggidawn
#2 -- Yeah, I really thought that video was going to resurface after Mae went transparent and had lots of people following her. I figured some of them would get obsessive and start looking into her background.
13leahbird
Just to nitpick.... Can you rename this thread "The Circle: What rang true for you?" so that it matches all the other threads for The Circle discussion? Having not read it yet, I'm avoiding these threads but stumbled into this one thinking it was a general thread for the new project.
Thanks!
Thanks!
15benitastrnad
When e-mail first came out I loved it. I thought what a great way to communicate with ALL of my friends. For about 2 years I sent out these great e-mails to ALL of my friends. Then life began to interfere and my volume tapered off. What I was really doing was a sort of early type of Blogging. Then I realize that I was making some big assumptions and trying to satisfy ALL of my friendships with one generic letter. What kind of friend is that? If you are saying the same thing to all of your friends at the same time, communicating with them isn't about them - it is about you. That makes you incredibly selfish. Friendship should be a give some take some kind of thing, not all one-sided. The social media we have today makes things so one sided. My side only.
16Merryann
I can think of too many things in real life that sound quite a bit Circley. Here's just one:
I got my first cell phone because I drove an old car. The only point to the cellular device was to call for help in case the car stalled out. That made good sense, kept me safer, and certainly gave me peace of mind. I rarely actually talked on the phone.
Nowadays, I don't go anywhere without my cell phone. This is the new norm. I like being able to reach my kids at any time. I usually like the sense of being reachable myself wherever I am.
But, twenty years ago if someone had said, "Here, pay money for this phone. People will be able to call and talk to you at any time, wherever you are. Your personal location can be pinpointed with technology that tells where this phone is." I would have said, "Are you crazy? No way!"
The next step for me is the upcoming Smart Phone. A whole 'nother wave of 'services' and 'useful features'. A whole 'nother layer of being even more accessible to everyone all the time. I don't particularly want one, but the way the phone plans are set up, I am slowly being jockeyed into the position of choosing between paying more money for my normal phone or getting the 'family share plan' and getting the Smart Phone.
A newly-minted American adult was probably raised with cell phones in his/her family. Quite likely received their own phone while in their early to mid teens. Probably never considered the trade off of privacy for safety and convenience cell phones entail.
Lois McMaster Bujold says a great line in one of her books, regarding her character Miles who has lived under a net of security to protect him all of his life. I'm not quoting exactly, but it's something like, "Does a fish think about water?"
If you were raised in an absence of personal privacy, and that has been the norm for you and your peers, how can you value personal privacy?
I got my first cell phone because I drove an old car. The only point to the cellular device was to call for help in case the car stalled out. That made good sense, kept me safer, and certainly gave me peace of mind. I rarely actually talked on the phone.
Nowadays, I don't go anywhere without my cell phone. This is the new norm. I like being able to reach my kids at any time. I usually like the sense of being reachable myself wherever I am.
But, twenty years ago if someone had said, "Here, pay money for this phone. People will be able to call and talk to you at any time, wherever you are. Your personal location can be pinpointed with technology that tells where this phone is." I would have said, "Are you crazy? No way!"
The next step for me is the upcoming Smart Phone. A whole 'nother wave of 'services' and 'useful features'. A whole 'nother layer of being even more accessible to everyone all the time. I don't particularly want one, but the way the phone plans are set up, I am slowly being jockeyed into the position of choosing between paying more money for my normal phone or getting the 'family share plan' and getting the Smart Phone.
A newly-minted American adult was probably raised with cell phones in his/her family. Quite likely received their own phone while in their early to mid teens. Probably never considered the trade off of privacy for safety and convenience cell phones entail.
Lois McMaster Bujold says a great line in one of her books, regarding her character Miles who has lived under a net of security to protect him all of his life. I'm not quoting exactly, but it's something like, "Does a fish think about water?"
If you were raised in an absence of personal privacy, and that has been the norm for you and your peers, how can you value personal privacy?
17TheoClarke
Yesterday at lunch, one of my companions received a call from his wife asking him to buy some grocery item before coming home. The responses from the group were varied. Before mobile phones John would have gone home happily without doing any shopping. Some of the group saw that as a more desirable outcome. Others of us asked why John and his wife did not have a shared shopping list online so that John could check whenever he was near a shop.
18.Monkey.
>17 TheoClarke: Cripes are you kidding, there's actually people who bother to put online shopping lists?! Wow. I'm rather floored by that. And a bit creeped out. No thanks. Never ever for me.
19timspalding
You just share a document. This assumes your typing up your shopping list.
I don't do it, buy my wife frequently texts me shopping lists when I go to Hannaford.
I don't do it, buy my wife frequently texts me shopping lists when I go to Hannaford.
20.Monkey.
I'd never type up a shopping list, personally. It's, imho, over the top. It takes about 15 seconds to jot down the things I need on a slip of paper. No getting out devices, opening programs, using miserable phone keyboards, etc. Just simple tried & true write and go.
Now, if one person is out and there's something that's needed, sure, calling or texting to say Hey can you pick up... makes perfect sense. But to actually keep an updated online list to be accessible 24/7... yikes. Too much for me.
Now, if one person is out and there's something that's needed, sure, calling or texting to say Hey can you pick up... makes perfect sense. But to actually keep an updated online list to be accessible 24/7... yikes. Too much for me.
21labwriter
>17 TheoClarke: a shared shopping list online
Sorry, I just fell off my chair laughing. That's so OCD--or CDO, as my nephew would say (compulsively alphabetized). I'm one of those people who shops every day. I jot down what I need and put the list in my pocket. If I forget something, I email the Big Guy and he's happy to stop on the way home. He often shops on the weekend so that I don't have to do it seven days a week. His tradeoff--great meals at home. I doubt he would think it a "more desirable outcome" to come home to no dinner.
ETA. I'm retired, he's not, so I'm more than happy to cook--just in case someone is going to point out that he ought to be sharing the cooking chores.
Sorry, I just fell off my chair laughing. That's so OCD--or CDO, as my nephew would say (compulsively alphabetized). I'm one of those people who shops every day. I jot down what I need and put the list in my pocket. If I forget something, I email the Big Guy and he's happy to stop on the way home. He often shops on the weekend so that I don't have to do it seven days a week. His tradeoff--great meals at home. I doubt he would think it a "more desirable outcome" to come home to no dinner.
ETA. I'm retired, he's not, so I'm more than happy to cook--just in case someone is going to point out that he ought to be sharing the cooking chores.
22.Monkey.
>21 labwriter: Glad I'm not the only one!
23JerryMmm
We often make a list on the whiteboard, then take a picture and if necessary whatsapp it to whoever goes shopping.
We do share our calendars through google calendar.
What rang through to me is the situation at the table with Mae and Mercer and her parents. We're both close to being addicted to our phones, although I mainly keep myself to forums, while my wife does the facetwits. We have to make a conscious effort not to use our phones when we're out on the town.
Fomo.
We do share our calendars through google calendar.
What rang through to me is the situation at the table with Mae and Mercer and her parents. We're both close to being addicted to our phones, although I mainly keep myself to forums, while my wife does the facetwits. We have to make a conscious effort not to use our phones when we're out on the town.
Fomo.
24benitastrnad
The whole electronic world is foreign to me. I don't have a computer at home and don't have internet access there. Reading this book is like reading about a foreign culture. I have trouble believing that people would choose to live the life as described in the book.
I have a cell phone. Don't know what the number for it is. (I have to look it up.) I check it twice a day. In the morning when I get up and at night before I go to bed. At night I delete the calls that came in on it during the day. I think it has texting, but don't use it. It has a camera on it, but other than to irritate me when I turn it on by accident I don't know why it is there. If I want to take pictures I will use a camera not a cell phone. (I don't bless my friends with unwanted pictures of my dog or child by phone or e-mails. heck, I don't even put them on Christmas cards why would I send pictures of them on cell phones.) I am not sure why I have a cell phone. I got it because my boss insisted I have one for work (so they could reach me in an emergency.) I have a house phone and love that it doesn't ring. I did notice that having a cell phone doubled my phone bill, but other than that I am not sure what it does for me.
I am not afraid to be unconnected. I like my independence. I like my freedom. I like being able to get away from everybody. I don't want to be watched. My home is my sanctuary. I don't want to be tied down or tied to a phone. I rarely sit around waiting for a phone call. I love my private time. I love my family time - talking to them in person, usually around a table with a cup of coffee or tea.
As for accessibility - I am either at work or home. If I am not at one of those two places you don't need to call me.
As for emergencies - I keep good tires and a good battery on my car. There might be a time I need the phone to call 911 or my insurance agent and I admit, the few times I use the phone those are the two numbers I am most likely to call. My family knows how and when to call me. I live far enough away from them that by the time I would get in a car and get home whatever happened is likely to have already happened with results that I can't change. A few minutes or hours gained by carrying around a cell phone won't change that.
I hate cell phones. They are too small. They make my neck hurt if I try to talk on them for any length of time so I call my sisters and parents from the house phone. You can't multitask with them in hand like you could with old phones. (for instance, I could talk and knit at the same time, or talk and cook, can't do that now with my neck laying on my shoulder or one handed.) The sound is bad on cell phones, and all of a sudden while I am talking the call ends. There are great swaths of the country through which I travel on a regular basis that does not have cell phone access so can't use it that much. I also hate it when people talk to me using their cell phone as half the time it sounds like they are talking through a long tunnel and don't even get me started on the delay time on a cell phone and the talk overs that causes.
Bottom line - most people exaggerate their need for a cell phone. They are primarily using it for recreational purposes and feel that they have to justify having it because it is useful, or for emergencies.
Oh - I jot down items on a shopping list and then recycle the paper.
I have a cell phone. Don't know what the number for it is. (I have to look it up.) I check it twice a day. In the morning when I get up and at night before I go to bed. At night I delete the calls that came in on it during the day. I think it has texting, but don't use it. It has a camera on it, but other than to irritate me when I turn it on by accident I don't know why it is there. If I want to take pictures I will use a camera not a cell phone. (I don't bless my friends with unwanted pictures of my dog or child by phone or e-mails. heck, I don't even put them on Christmas cards why would I send pictures of them on cell phones.) I am not sure why I have a cell phone. I got it because my boss insisted I have one for work (so they could reach me in an emergency.) I have a house phone and love that it doesn't ring. I did notice that having a cell phone doubled my phone bill, but other than that I am not sure what it does for me.
I am not afraid to be unconnected. I like my independence. I like my freedom. I like being able to get away from everybody. I don't want to be watched. My home is my sanctuary. I don't want to be tied down or tied to a phone. I rarely sit around waiting for a phone call. I love my private time. I love my family time - talking to them in person, usually around a table with a cup of coffee or tea.
As for accessibility - I am either at work or home. If I am not at one of those two places you don't need to call me.
As for emergencies - I keep good tires and a good battery on my car. There might be a time I need the phone to call 911 or my insurance agent and I admit, the few times I use the phone those are the two numbers I am most likely to call. My family knows how and when to call me. I live far enough away from them that by the time I would get in a car and get home whatever happened is likely to have already happened with results that I can't change. A few minutes or hours gained by carrying around a cell phone won't change that.
I hate cell phones. They are too small. They make my neck hurt if I try to talk on them for any length of time so I call my sisters and parents from the house phone. You can't multitask with them in hand like you could with old phones. (for instance, I could talk and knit at the same time, or talk and cook, can't do that now with my neck laying on my shoulder or one handed.) The sound is bad on cell phones, and all of a sudden while I am talking the call ends. There are great swaths of the country through which I travel on a regular basis that does not have cell phone access so can't use it that much. I also hate it when people talk to me using their cell phone as half the time it sounds like they are talking through a long tunnel and don't even get me started on the delay time on a cell phone and the talk overs that causes.
Bottom line - most people exaggerate their need for a cell phone. They are primarily using it for recreational purposes and feel that they have to justify having it because it is useful, or for emergencies.
Oh - I jot down items on a shopping list and then recycle the paper.
25bfister
That's interesting. The way people fell into line with the things the Circle was rolling out seemed way too lifelike to me.
26qebo
It’s an everybody else and convenience creep thing...
I got a cell phone because I was on the verge of visiting friends in another state, their schedule was too frenetic to sit around waiting for an uncertain arrival time, and they expected to sync by phone or text. I moved and saw no reason to retain the land line; two phone numbers confused people and I kept forgetting to check messages. I upgraded to a smart phone for travel beyond a few days, a reasonable delay for responding to email, but now I feel out of the loop without it. I work at home and should be accessible by phone and email during business hours, so a smart phone gives me the flexibility to run errands. Way back when, I spent three months out of the country and sent a few postcards, but now people worry.
I have a Facebook account because family members began posting photos and life tidbits that didn’t rise to the level of direct email reports, and now they assume that direct email reports aren’t necessary for notable news. Recently I’ve “liked” a bunch of community groups because Facebook has become the simplest way to create a forum with two-way communication, and this is where announcements are made. I was alarmed a couple weeks ago when I committed to attend a community event and it automatically showed up on my phone calendar; I do not recall explicitly agreeing to such a linkage. I rarely post to Facebook so my immediate concern isn’t privacy, it’s that Facebook is _lousy_ at information organization, stuff flits by and it’s difficult to search or grab hold of. I consider Facebook a public “nice” place, which is fine. Not many of my real friends have accounts, it’s not suitable for conversation in depth, a “like” essentially means I’m paying attention. A few acquaintances post political stuff, but this tends toward the hyperbolic in undiscussable form and I typically ignore it. I’m resisting options for Facebook login to other sites, but I’m regarding their proliferation with suspicion.
I got a cell phone because I was on the verge of visiting friends in another state, their schedule was too frenetic to sit around waiting for an uncertain arrival time, and they expected to sync by phone or text. I moved and saw no reason to retain the land line; two phone numbers confused people and I kept forgetting to check messages. I upgraded to a smart phone for travel beyond a few days, a reasonable delay for responding to email, but now I feel out of the loop without it. I work at home and should be accessible by phone and email during business hours, so a smart phone gives me the flexibility to run errands. Way back when, I spent three months out of the country and sent a few postcards, but now people worry.
I have a Facebook account because family members began posting photos and life tidbits that didn’t rise to the level of direct email reports, and now they assume that direct email reports aren’t necessary for notable news. Recently I’ve “liked” a bunch of community groups because Facebook has become the simplest way to create a forum with two-way communication, and this is where announcements are made. I was alarmed a couple weeks ago when I committed to attend a community event and it automatically showed up on my phone calendar; I do not recall explicitly agreeing to such a linkage. I rarely post to Facebook so my immediate concern isn’t privacy, it’s that Facebook is _lousy_ at information organization, stuff flits by and it’s difficult to search or grab hold of. I consider Facebook a public “nice” place, which is fine. Not many of my real friends have accounts, it’s not suitable for conversation in depth, a “like” essentially means I’m paying attention. A few acquaintances post political stuff, but this tends toward the hyperbolic in undiscussable form and I typically ignore it. I’m resisting options for Facebook login to other sites, but I’m regarding their proliferation with suspicion.
27Merryann
From Post 26: "I have a Facebook account because family members began posting photos and life tidbits that didn’t rise to the level of direct email reports, and now they assume that direct email reports aren’t necessary for notable news."
This is my point; people who have been adults for more than just a few years probably weighed the pros and cons of taking on new technology. And we've noticed it morph over the years. Some of us, like the on-line shoppiing list people mentioned by TheoClarke in Post 17, embraced it heavily. Others, like benitastrnad in Post 24, choose to have little to do with the new technologies.
But the young adults and the teenagers who will soon be adults have lived with these abilities all their lives. Most of them may not weigh the pros and cons the way people my age did when deciding what to use and what not to use.
I think it's not that Mae is an unrealistically written character. I think it's that Mae, in her early 20s, sees the world very differently from me. Instant communication and feedback is the norm for her. Not only does she not care about losing her privacy, she feels most connected when thousands of people on-line are paying attention to her. That's really no different from the young people who send me Facebook 'friend requests' even though they barely know me, or in some cases have never met me. (I do not 'friend' them.) This appalled me when it first started happening; my son took it in his stride, shrugging, "It's no big deal, Mom. They just want their numbers to go up."
This is my point; people who have been adults for more than just a few years probably weighed the pros and cons of taking on new technology. And we've noticed it morph over the years. Some of us, like the on-line shoppiing list people mentioned by TheoClarke in Post 17, embraced it heavily. Others, like benitastrnad in Post 24, choose to have little to do with the new technologies.
But the young adults and the teenagers who will soon be adults have lived with these abilities all their lives. Most of them may not weigh the pros and cons the way people my age did when deciding what to use and what not to use.
I think it's not that Mae is an unrealistically written character. I think it's that Mae, in her early 20s, sees the world very differently from me. Instant communication and feedback is the norm for her. Not only does she not care about losing her privacy, she feels most connected when thousands of people on-line are paying attention to her. That's really no different from the young people who send me Facebook 'friend requests' even though they barely know me, or in some cases have never met me. (I do not 'friend' them.) This appalled me when it first started happening; my son took it in his stride, shrugging, "It's no big deal, Mom. They just want their numbers to go up."
28qebo
27: I didn’t see Mae as representative of a generation. The people of her generation that I know are not so lacking in inner agency. They have active lives and ethics. Facebook is a peripheral tool. I agree there _is_ a difference in privacy assumptions. And I’ve watched myself adjusting my own privacy expectations over time.
When I added my high school to Facebook I got a friend request from a local real estate agent who went to the same high school. I ignored it, and removed the high school. I suspect the real estate agent was more networky than I care for before Facebook showed up, but Facebook is all too helpful in amplifying this sort of interaction.
When I added my high school to Facebook I got a friend request from a local real estate agent who went to the same high school. I ignored it, and removed the high school. I suspect the real estate agent was more networky than I care for before Facebook showed up, but Facebook is all too helpful in amplifying this sort of interaction.
29CarolO
Middle of the night and I am looking for something to watch on TV and stop on the History Channel for a JFK show - the majority of the show is reporting polls of mostly US citizens, stuff like 80% believe there was a second shooter, etc. It feels like something from The Circle as I sit here watching it.
I find the statistics interesting from a sociological perspective but scary when applied to history - like what we believe is more 'true' then the facts.
Cracks me up when they start showing polls like 62% of all conspiracy theorists believe...
I find the statistics interesting from a sociological perspective but scary when applied to history - like what we believe is more 'true' then the facts.
Cracks me up when they start showing polls like 62% of all conspiracy theorists believe...
30Gelöscht
Everyone has such great comments that it's hard not to devolve into dittohead-ism.
But, new idea: What rings true to me about "The Circle" is the way activism becomes mere voyeurism (well, except for that awful scene where Mae's erstwhile boyfriend is attacked by love drones. Jesus.)
It's hard to slog back to the 1960s in my aging brain, but I often wonder how social media might have affected the Vietnam War protests. My sense is that we would have expended our ire bitching about things in the virtual world instead of acting up live.
It's a lot easier to ignore FB pages and e-mails than it is a crowd of really pissed off cannon fodder candidates burning stuff up on public property.
edited for clarity
But, new idea: What rings true to me about "The Circle" is the way activism becomes mere voyeurism (well, except for that awful scene where Mae's erstwhile boyfriend is attacked by love drones. Jesus.)
It's hard to slog back to the 1960s in my aging brain, but I often wonder how social media might have affected the Vietnam War protests. My sense is that we would have expended our ire bitching about things in the virtual world instead of acting up live.
It's a lot easier to ignore FB pages and e-mails than it is a crowd of really pissed off cannon fodder candidates burning stuff up on public property.
edited for clarity
31eclecticdodo
I loved the way Mae got really worried about having sent a frown to some drug lord. Like he would even care. It's totally like the campaigns that go round facebook. "Share to help us beat cancer". I don't think cancer is listening.
32bfister
>30 nohrt4me2: - I've often wondered that, too - how much have I vented about something online and then felt as if I had somehow expressed myself and that was done, now ... what's for dinner? My activism (if I were doing it on Facebook or G+) would have simply been fodder for advertising. It's a kind of double voyeurism - we watch ourselves protesting and feel good about it. But it does nothing to change the world.
>31 eclecticdodo: - That's a good example of humor in this book. At times he nails the zeitgeist.
>31 eclecticdodo: - That's a good example of humor in this book. At times he nails the zeitgeist.
33Gelöscht
"It's a kind of double voyeurism - we watch ourselves protesting and feel good about it. But it does nothing to change the world."
Yes, it IS ironic. While we're distracted with recording our outrage or do-gooder-ism and getting others to "share" it or "like" it, the K Street lobbyists are dumping buckets of cash into the hungry maws of the elected power brokers. (I'm sorry I can't select purple type for that previous passage.)
A few years ago, while discussing possible union organization, younger colleagues wanted to bring others into the conversation with a FB page or blog. Everyone decided this would be a bad idea, at least until we were ready to go public. At "live" meetings, you at least know who's monitoring your communication and speak fairly freely. Set up a FB page or blog, and it's just too easy for The Man to listen in.
I don't want to pan the effect of social media entirely, however. Those "It Gets Better" spots truly seem to have helped a lot of kids.
Yes, it IS ironic. While we're distracted with recording our outrage or do-gooder-ism and getting others to "share" it or "like" it, the K Street lobbyists are dumping buckets of cash into the hungry maws of the elected power brokers. (I'm sorry I can't select purple type for that previous passage.)
A few years ago, while discussing possible union organization, younger colleagues wanted to bring others into the conversation with a FB page or blog. Everyone decided this would be a bad idea, at least until we were ready to go public. At "live" meetings, you at least know who's monitoring your communication and speak fairly freely. Set up a FB page or blog, and it's just too easy for The Man to listen in.
I don't want to pan the effect of social media entirely, however. Those "It Gets Better" spots truly seem to have helped a lot of kids.
34benitastrnad
I agree about the active protest versus the passive Facebook it. One gets things done - one watches. I had much the same feeling when watching the protests in Egypt. I heard that this was such an amazing thing, but I kept screaming inside my head" so what are we doing about it." It is to easy to watch and not get involved nowadays.
#27
The thing about just wanting their numbers to go up scares me. It's so Circle. But aside from that, it also says that people are validating themselves according to the number of hits, likes, friends, unfriends, etc. rather than for themselves. I don't see that as a good thing.
#27
The thing about just wanting their numbers to go up scares me. It's so Circle. But aside from that, it also says that people are validating themselves according to the number of hits, likes, friends, unfriends, etc. rather than for themselves. I don't see that as a good thing.
35Gelöscht
"... people are validating themselves according to the number of hits, likes, friends, unfriends, etc. rather than for themselves. I don't see that as a good thing."
Yes, Mae's worth to the company is in direct proportion to her validating others and feeding the "metrics."
I teach English at a small private college, and am somewhat disturbed by the way technology is being used in grading. It was great to have a common rubric with criteria weighted and defined by committee.
Now, however, we're being pushed to develop a "library" of standard comments to apply to student writing that needs help in any specific way. The problem is that not every student responds the same way to the same comment.
So I find myself subverting the system somewhat: I use the official online grading program for general problems, but continue to use paper copies on which I can write comments tailored for each student's talents and level of commitment. Some students need lots of encouragement. Some need to be told they're wasting their time and mine.
Long story short: Social media, with its dwindling space and reliance on smileys and frownies, requires us to reduce things to quick hits in black and white. What this does to discernment, critical thinking, and the ability to relate to individuals rather than the group seems to be prefigured in "The Circle."
Yes, Mae's worth to the company is in direct proportion to her validating others and feeding the "metrics."
I teach English at a small private college, and am somewhat disturbed by the way technology is being used in grading. It was great to have a common rubric with criteria weighted and defined by committee.
Now, however, we're being pushed to develop a "library" of standard comments to apply to student writing that needs help in any specific way. The problem is that not every student responds the same way to the same comment.
So I find myself subverting the system somewhat: I use the official online grading program for general problems, but continue to use paper copies on which I can write comments tailored for each student's talents and level of commitment. Some students need lots of encouragement. Some need to be told they're wasting their time and mine.
Long story short: Social media, with its dwindling space and reliance on smileys and frownies, requires us to reduce things to quick hits in black and white. What this does to discernment, critical thinking, and the ability to relate to individuals rather than the group seems to be prefigured in "The Circle."
36benitastrnad
#35
It's all about anomalies. Everything has to fit inside the matrix. The outliers are then shoved into the matrix - whether it fits them or not.
At work the other day we had a discussion about "outliers." I told the group that the rules we had set up fit 90% of the time, but then there were always going to be anomalies. I work in customer service. I have a job because there are anomalies. As soon as those are gone - so am I. And by extension so are they. Besides, we can't write rules for every anomaly. As by definition those are things that lie outside of the normative. If you write specific rules for every possibility then you end up with a document as lengthy as the Alabama State Constitution. (it is 1,300 pages long and growing.)
It's all about anomalies. Everything has to fit inside the matrix. The outliers are then shoved into the matrix - whether it fits them or not.
At work the other day we had a discussion about "outliers." I told the group that the rules we had set up fit 90% of the time, but then there were always going to be anomalies. I work in customer service. I have a job because there are anomalies. As soon as those are gone - so am I. And by extension so are they. Besides, we can't write rules for every anomaly. As by definition those are things that lie outside of the normative. If you write specific rules for every possibility then you end up with a document as lengthy as the Alabama State Constitution. (it is 1,300 pages long and growing.)
37Kira
27: "I think it's not that Mae is an unrealistically written character. I think it's that Mae, in her early 20s, sees the world very differently from me. Instant communication and feedback is the norm for her. Not only does she not care about losing her privacy, she feels most connected when thousands of people on-line are paying attention to her. "
I would say (as a person in my early 20s) that the people I know my age are way more concerned about privacy than those who are younger (in their teens) or older (my parent's generation). Specifically because of job hunting. Younger people aren't as worried yet about what their employers will see, because its not on their immediate radar, and older people either have a secure job and don't need to worry about what future employers would see, or haven't job hunted before in this FB-era and so haven't considered that employers would try to FB-stalk them.
Around certain times of year, a whole new group of my friends suddenly changes their Facebook name to remove their last name or alter the spelling of their first and last names so as to be less easy to find. And around when I graduated high school, some of my friends deleted their old FB profiles and just made entirely new ones, because it was easier than them deleting individual pictures they had posted of drug/alcohol use. All the older people I know on Facebook use their exact real name.
I agree about the instant feedback and communication stuff though...
I would say (as a person in my early 20s) that the people I know my age are way more concerned about privacy than those who are younger (in their teens) or older (my parent's generation). Specifically because of job hunting. Younger people aren't as worried yet about what their employers will see, because its not on their immediate radar, and older people either have a secure job and don't need to worry about what future employers would see, or haven't job hunted before in this FB-era and so haven't considered that employers would try to FB-stalk them.
Around certain times of year, a whole new group of my friends suddenly changes their Facebook name to remove their last name or alter the spelling of their first and last names so as to be less easy to find. And around when I graduated high school, some of my friends deleted their old FB profiles and just made entirely new ones, because it was easier than them deleting individual pictures they had posted of drug/alcohol use. All the older people I know on Facebook use their exact real name.
I agree about the instant feedback and communication stuff though...
38timspalding
activism becomes mere voyeurism
I loved the way Mae got really worried about having sent a frown to some drug lord. Like he would even care. It's totally like the campaigns that go round facebook. "Share to help us beat cancer". I don't think cancer is listening.
Right. I can't recall it exactly, but wasn't there some orphanage they raised "smiles" for?
Those "It Gets Better" spots truly seem to have helped a lot of kids.
Right. Bailey mentions that phenomenon at the center of his argument against privacy—that having gays be out in the open helped gay rights. It's obviously true as far as it goes. But the whole notion of "look, it's normal!" has become a default cultural trope and, I feel, somehow also flawed. Developing that idea would take too much time and get too off-topic. But he's hit upon the limit case of a almost self-evident cultural argument.
I loved the way Mae got really worried about having sent a frown to some drug lord. Like he would even care. It's totally like the campaigns that go round facebook. "Share to help us beat cancer". I don't think cancer is listening.
Right. I can't recall it exactly, but wasn't there some orphanage they raised "smiles" for?
Those "It Gets Better" spots truly seem to have helped a lot of kids.
Right. Bailey mentions that phenomenon at the center of his argument against privacy—that having gays be out in the open helped gay rights. It's obviously true as far as it goes. But the whole notion of "look, it's normal!" has become a default cultural trope and, I feel, somehow also flawed. Developing that idea would take too much time and get too off-topic. But he's hit upon the limit case of a almost self-evident cultural argument.
39Gelöscht
I'm not sure that the "it gets better" ads = "look, it's normal," but I think I understand your larger point (which is germane to the book):
That which begins as a public service can turn quickly into glib meaninglessness or self-serving exhibitionism. For example, when Mae stumbles in on her parents having sex while hooked up to her transparency camera, her shame at having betrayed such an intimate moment is waved away as a public service, encouraging those with disabilities to regain their sexuality.
As a former journalist concerned with reportage than seems to increasingly pander to the prurient, that scene disturbed me more than any other in the book. It reminded me of so much "soft news" that focuses on very private moments wrapped in the guise of "public service" or "human interest"--the zoom in on grieving Sandy Hook parents as they seem about to dissolve into sobs; Robin Roberts having her head shaved during chemo treatments; the revelation that Michael Jackson's numerous plastic surgeries left him virtually without a nose and forced him to wear a prosthetic.
Social media allows a higher degree of this kind of "sharing," and I have my doubts about whether it leads to increased understanding about the human condition or any humane action. I think it merely becomes a kind of pornography, a freak show.
That part of the book really rings true for me.
edited for typos
That which begins as a public service can turn quickly into glib meaninglessness or self-serving exhibitionism. For example, when Mae stumbles in on her parents having sex while hooked up to her transparency camera, her shame at having betrayed such an intimate moment is waved away as a public service, encouraging those with disabilities to regain their sexuality.
As a former journalist concerned with reportage than seems to increasingly pander to the prurient, that scene disturbed me more than any other in the book. It reminded me of so much "soft news" that focuses on very private moments wrapped in the guise of "public service" or "human interest"--the zoom in on grieving Sandy Hook parents as they seem about to dissolve into sobs; Robin Roberts having her head shaved during chemo treatments; the revelation that Michael Jackson's numerous plastic surgeries left him virtually without a nose and forced him to wear a prosthetic.
Social media allows a higher degree of this kind of "sharing," and I have my doubts about whether it leads to increased understanding about the human condition or any humane action. I think it merely becomes a kind of pornography, a freak show.
That part of the book really rings true for me.
edited for typos
40timspalding
No, good point. I was subsuming "it gets better" into the larger theme of "coming out" in reality and fantasy--that is, both real people and people in TV shows, etc. That's probably the lesser of its effects.
I can't agree more with the rest of your post.
As Pnin says in Pnin: "Why not leave their private sorrow to people? Is sorrow not, one asks, the only thing in the world people really possess?"
I can't agree more with the rest of your post.
As Pnin says in Pnin: "Why not leave their private sorrow to people? Is sorrow not, one asks, the only thing in the world people really possess?"
41matthewmason
When it comes to commitment, activism, and anonymity on the Internet, I think Eggers is definitely on to something. I may do my own "what rang true for you" post on this at much more length.
The unsettling aspect of such frowns/smiles/likes for public issues is that it promotes an idle curiosity lack of follow-through — responsibility really — for issues that do really matter. Committed individuals and groups, oftentimes ones who really know what they are doing, create real lasting developments when it comes to chronic issues like crime and poverty; Mae may feel that she is truly fighting a ruthless drug lord, when in fact she is making little impact at all (and maybe even, as she realizes to her horror, putting them in harm's way). Risk is also important factor in commitment, which barely exists when one sends out a frown or a smile. I have a nice star trek analogy up my sleeve for this one.
So if the question is one of public work, that's where I feel Eggers is on to something — the Circle encourages its workers to expand upon projects that they consider their hobbies, turning their non-commitments, risk-free activities, into society-changing revolutions; workers in turn feel vindicated by a torrent of online applause. So I'm thinking that Eggers is attempting to point out the dangers of the popular sphere (which has really been around since advent of the newspaper in a modern form), made new, as social media — how it can wreck havoc on responsible, informed action, and homogenizes skill sets towards a hallow utilitarian "greatest good for greatest number"* goal.
----
*Bailey's obsession with "human perfectibility" is a whole other can of worms I'd love to get into.
**I'm also interested by the tipsy man, who congratulates Mae for realizing his goal of internet-gospel, as some sort of metaphor or the radical unification of knowledge and society.
The unsettling aspect of such frowns/smiles/likes for public issues is that it promotes an idle curiosity lack of follow-through — responsibility really — for issues that do really matter. Committed individuals and groups, oftentimes ones who really know what they are doing, create real lasting developments when it comes to chronic issues like crime and poverty; Mae may feel that she is truly fighting a ruthless drug lord, when in fact she is making little impact at all (and maybe even, as she realizes to her horror, putting them in harm's way). Risk is also important factor in commitment, which barely exists when one sends out a frown or a smile. I have a nice star trek analogy up my sleeve for this one.
So if the question is one of public work, that's where I feel Eggers is on to something — the Circle encourages its workers to expand upon projects that they consider their hobbies, turning their non-commitments, risk-free activities, into society-changing revolutions; workers in turn feel vindicated by a torrent of online applause. So I'm thinking that Eggers is attempting to point out the dangers of the popular sphere (which has really been around since advent of the newspaper in a modern form), made new, as social media — how it can wreck havoc on responsible, informed action, and homogenizes skill sets towards a hallow utilitarian "greatest good for greatest number"* goal.
----
*Bailey's obsession with "human perfectibility" is a whole other can of worms I'd love to get into.
**I'm also interested by the tipsy man, who congratulates Mae for realizing his goal of internet-gospel, as some sort of metaphor or the radical unification of knowledge and society.
42Gelöscht
Oh, open that can o' worms, matthewmason!
I'll open a new thread on the theological undertones in "The Circle." Because they're all over the place. See you there.
I'll open a new thread on the theological undertones in "The Circle." Because they're all over the place. See you there.
43tottman
The "frown" at the Guatemalan drug lord stood out for me. I was almost disappointed when Eggers referenced it a second time late in the book because I didn't think it needed underscoring. The part that rang true for me was the earnestness with which Mae felt her "frown" mattered. It was like keeping up with the Kardashians or Paris Hilton where they are famous for being famous. Mae's frowns or smiles are only significant because of her large number of followers but she hasn't done anything to merit being followed.
44benitastrnad
The people at LT who suggested this book for a group read must be very courageous as much of what is discussed in the environs of the Circle are things that are found here in LT. I laughed, (or is that smiled?) at the thought of sending smiles and frowns and the more the book went on the funnier these became. While I agree that LT is a community and I have enjoyed getting to meet people at some of our meet-ups, I also found myself making many comparisons between the Circle and talk portion of LT. LT is the only social media forum in which I participate. I don't do Facebook or Twitter so I think that many of the things about the Circle are pointed directly at those two social media forums, but don't know for sure. I have looked at Facebook with people who have accounts there and each time I find myself wondering why? Why are they there? Who looks at that stuff? and most of all I don't want to know what you ate or the fact that you are going to bed. In short - what I see on Facebook is trite.
So why do I participate in Lt? The simple answer is that it is about books. As the number of people who read gets smaller it is harder for me to find people with whom I can discuss books. I do belong to a real life book discussion group and this group has struggled to stay alive. We have four people who regularly attend the monthly meetings. All women. No men. It is hard to find the time when we can all meet. LT fills the gaps and allows me to have book and bookie discussions when I can get to them. I do wonder about the participation as it seems to me that there are lots of watchers and few participants. I don't think that LT should coerce anybody into participating like they did at the Circle, but sometimes it would be nice to hear from all those people who sign up for the group reads. If they aren't going to participate why sign up?
So why do I participate in Lt? The simple answer is that it is about books. As the number of people who read gets smaller it is harder for me to find people with whom I can discuss books. I do belong to a real life book discussion group and this group has struggled to stay alive. We have four people who regularly attend the monthly meetings. All women. No men. It is hard to find the time when we can all meet. LT fills the gaps and allows me to have book and bookie discussions when I can get to them. I do wonder about the participation as it seems to me that there are lots of watchers and few participants. I don't think that LT should coerce anybody into participating like they did at the Circle, but sometimes it would be nice to hear from all those people who sign up for the group reads. If they aren't going to participate why sign up?
45Merryann
My guess is that some sign up because this is a nice safe place to do so. I base this solely on myself as an example: I joined Library Thing in 2010, immediately decided I was not ready to be that internet-savvy, and did almost nothing with the account until 2013. This year I added many items to my library, and, after much agonizing over whether I would cause the world to fall out of orbit if I dared ask some questions, I did manage to ask and learn things I didn't know about adding items.
That led to being able to ask questions about other areas of the site. The world, I am glad to note, did not sling itself out of orbit because of my boldness there either.
After finding that people would not point at me from car windows when I drive down the street if I go on the Library Things Groups tab and join some groups, I dared to play some of the games in the games group. It's fun! And everyone is very nice.
Now, I'm in this book club adding posts when I have time to join the discussion. I feel like the bravest mouse to ever snatch the peanut butter crackers off the kitchen table.
The point is, I think some people may join the book club because they know they are going to read the book. And then they come and read the posts, but they are not internet-ready enough to want to join in the talking yet. As time goes by, they will see what nice and friendly people we are, and soon will be nibbling crackers and looking for a Library Thing group about the best ways to clean the peanut butter out of your fur.
That led to being able to ask questions about other areas of the site. The world, I am glad to note, did not sling itself out of orbit because of my boldness there either.
After finding that people would not point at me from car windows when I drive down the street if I go on the Library Things Groups tab and join some groups, I dared to play some of the games in the games group. It's fun! And everyone is very nice.
Now, I'm in this book club adding posts when I have time to join the discussion. I feel like the bravest mouse to ever snatch the peanut butter crackers off the kitchen table.
The point is, I think some people may join the book club because they know they are going to read the book. And then they come and read the posts, but they are not internet-ready enough to want to join in the talking yet. As time goes by, they will see what nice and friendly people we are, and soon will be nibbling crackers and looking for a Library Thing group about the best ways to clean the peanut butter out of your fur.
46CarolO
>44 benitastrnad: ...and life happens.
I have only been in one RL book club, it was wonderful, a small but diverse group - men and women and a wide range of ages - but sometimes people have to work extra hours unexpectedly or have a sick child...and sometimes you start a book and realize that it is not a book that you can read, for me that means graphic violence.
Having said that, I have been surprised that the talk threads haven't been more active. I usually don't post something if someone else has already said it, for example, several people have brought up the multiple screens and multi-tasking so I see no need to repeat it. Maybe the story was so sobering that we are all afraid of falling down the rabbit hole if we post?
I have only been in one RL book club, it was wonderful, a small but diverse group - men and women and a wide range of ages - but sometimes people have to work extra hours unexpectedly or have a sick child...and sometimes you start a book and realize that it is not a book that you can read, for me that means graphic violence.
Having said that, I have been surprised that the talk threads haven't been more active. I usually don't post something if someone else has already said it, for example, several people have brought up the multiple screens and multi-tasking so I see no need to repeat it. Maybe the story was so sobering that we are all afraid of falling down the rabbit hole if we post?
47timspalding
Guardian: "The Elan Gale internet hoax sums up all that is rotten about our online lives"
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/03/elan-gale-internet-hoax-rot...
There is, I think, an alternate social-media dystopia to be written--one not of transparency and fake niceness, but of naked cruelty. They are alike, perhaps, in infantilization.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/03/elan-gale-internet-hoax-rot...
"The Gale saga combines so many of the worst elements of digital life it is like a parody of internet bullshittery written by Jonathan Franzen.
It is one of the weird ironies of the internet that just as it can expand one's knowledge infinitely, it frequently encourages an arrested adolescence. That no news organisation bothered to fact-check Gale's story before reporting it illustrates the sort of immature overexcitement that engulfs some people when dealing with the web. Snarkiness, cruelty and public shaming are online's default modes of discourse and there are now apps for grown ups that would have seemed weird to me when I was 13, such as the increasingly popular Lulu, in which women – grown women – rate their ex-boyfriends, along with photos and hashtags. Sure, it's fun to waste time on the internet, and it's sweet to watch the generation gap closing online, with parents "liking" their children's Instagram posts. But it's also weird to see so many adults acting like hormonal and hyperactive 13-year-olds, humiliating others and themselves for the sake of phoney popularity and dubious celebrity. As for those of us who pretty much entered adulthood just as the internet was emerging, we can still only dream about what it must feel like to live in the grownup world."
There is, I think, an alternate social-media dystopia to be written--one not of transparency and fake niceness, but of naked cruelty. They are alike, perhaps, in infantilization.
48pbirch01
"The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches"
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-nsas-porn-surveillance-p...
This sounds exactly like that part in the Circle where politicians who tried to shut down the Circle were found to have incriminating material on their computer.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-nsas-porn-surveillance-p...
This sounds exactly like that part in the Circle where politicians who tried to shut down the Circle were found to have incriminating material on their computer.
49timspalding
That is outrageous. There's been so much that's outrageous recently, but the sky hasn't broken in two or anything. Americans just absorb the latest revelations and move on.
50Merryann
Sometimes I just feel powerless to do anything that would really make a difference. Yes, it's the annoying old 'what can just one person do?' syndrome.
I wish there had been some characters in the book who lived in that helpless-feeling place of 'I hate that this is happening. I have never considered myself an extremist sort of person, but I don't like this trend and I have no power to stop it.' It would have given me someone to identify with.
Maybe that's who Ty was meant to be, and he just didn't come out clear enough. Maybe that's literary fiction, lol*, making him vague in actions because he is unsure inside himself of what to do.
*Laughing at myself because I so often don't 'get' it, not laughing at literary fiction.
I wish there had been some characters in the book who lived in that helpless-feeling place of 'I hate that this is happening. I have never considered myself an extremist sort of person, but I don't like this trend and I have no power to stop it.' It would have given me someone to identify with.
Maybe that's who Ty was meant to be, and he just didn't come out clear enough. Maybe that's literary fiction, lol*, making him vague in actions because he is unsure inside himself of what to do.
*Laughing at myself because I so often don't 'get' it, not laughing at literary fiction.
51Ling.Lass
I think that to a certain extent, Annie came to represent this point of view. It was becoming clear to her that though she looked like she had power, she could do nothing to stop what she was beginning to see was happening.
52benitastrnad
#50 & 51
I agree with both of you. I think that both Ty and Annie were coming to a place where they realized the dangers but each were neutralized. The story about the shark is where Ty's true sympathies reached that point you describe and he realized he couldn't do anything.
as a result, he disappeared back into his underground world. Annie, too, retreated from the world. You can bet that Bailey and Co will keep her there.
It struck me that perhaps Eggers didn't give us a hero because he wants us to think about the consequences of this sort of dystopian society and realize that in many ways it is already here. He is painting a bleak picture of the future because he sees that it the then has become the now.
I agree with both of you. I think that both Ty and Annie were coming to a place where they realized the dangers but each were neutralized. The story about the shark is where Ty's true sympathies reached that point you describe and he realized he couldn't do anything.
as a result, he disappeared back into his underground world. Annie, too, retreated from the world. You can bet that Bailey and Co will keep her there.
It struck me that perhaps Eggers didn't give us a hero because he wants us to think about the consequences of this sort of dystopian society and realize that in many ways it is already here. He is painting a bleak picture of the future because he sees that it the then has become the now.
53timspalding
Facebook Considers the 'Sympathize' Button
By Brian Feldman
http://www.thewire.com/technology/2013/12/facebook-considers-sympathize-button/3...
It's too bad. As it is now, updates about terrible things could only be responded to with words. "I lost my job" elicited "That's too bad" and even "I love you." Now we can replace that with a button too. Progress.
By Brian Feldman
http://www.thewire.com/technology/2013/12/facebook-considers-sympathize-button/3...
It's too bad. As it is now, updates about terrible things could only be responded to with words. "I lost my job" elicited "That's too bad" and even "I love you." Now we can replace that with a button too. Progress.
54TheoClarke
>53 timspalding: Like.
55timspalding
Smile!
56benitastrnad
#53
That is just unreal. Isn't it?
This on the same day that the Amazon's, Google's, etc. went to Congress to protest the Government invading privacy.
That is just unreal. Isn't it?
This on the same day that the Amazon's, Google's, etc. went to Congress to protest the Government invading privacy.
57krazy4katz
OK, a hot new app named….wait for it….The Circle!
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/circle-latest-hot-iphone-app-wants-connect-you...
Too weird.
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/circle-latest-hot-iphone-app-wants-connect-you...
Too weird.
58fuzzy_patters
That's really crazy. I guess that sometimes life does imitate art.
59krazy4katz
The "what goes around comes around" comment in the article stopped me for a moment. That is what happens in The Circle to Annie in particular and Mae (although she doesn't realize it).
Edited to correct quote from article.
Edited to correct quote from article.
60matthewmason
>59 krazy4katz: Bizarre, to say the least. Almost comically and exuberantly ironic; notice the backround to the app's homepage is San Francisco.
61matthewmason
And what in the name of anything does "positive" mean, in the lower right of the display glass the floating, impersonal hand?
62krazy4katz
61> no clue about the positive button. Maybe that is where you are supposed to "like" everything the "positive people" tell you. I am not downloading the app to find out though. If someone is brave enough to do it, please let us know!
