Saturday Evening Post

In a week where things got as close to normal as what passes for normal around M3, there were many exciting and eventful things which arrived and stayed. Clyde took an extra day, since his day was technologically skipped. He has some more to say. Grab a cuppa and snuggle into a rocker. Let’s talk.

Social Functions Blog Hops

M3 is in the lineup for two new blog hops. Edward Hotspur’s Romantic Monday is a weekly. I have been quick to assure those in the SIB worried…It will not replace Mantra’s spot. She may move to another day, however, depending on work load as we near launch.

Samantha Light-Gallagher’s Widowed Blog Hop was more of a surprise than I imagined. It is a monthly hop. So, for those uninterested, it will be an easy one to scroll past.

The Red Hat series over at Tilted Tiara is going to be a recurrent field trip over the next…well, until I run out of examples of dysfunctional, nonfeasant, alleged customer service with retrograde intellect. I am guessing it will be a long time.

Broken

Two updates from WordPress this week effectively destroyed a piece of real estate I offer the M3 Readers. You may have noticed this week the green stars after the posts are missing. I have not removed them, but the generating software can no longer pull them.

In a brain-bleeding-saving decision, I have decided not to recode them. It is a toss up as to whether WP will get them fixed. Since they were one place which did not work with any real regularity, I do not consider them all that big a loss.

On the upside, the Love! button is working without its normal protest. The stars for the WP people irritate the Love! button for those who do not want to give the posts a grade.

Mantra

For those looking forward to Mantra’s new book, either out of morbid curiosity or a healthy embrace of the darkness, Mantra’s Midnight is progressing disturbingly well. I need to do some transcription from her notebook, but already there are 39 poems in the book. Unlike MFM, I am not shooting for 100 poems in this book. Instead, I am going for at least 150 pages. So far, it is more than one-third complete.

RP

The forum has some questions I have posed to all who write. In “Nuts & Bolts”, I have posed similar queries to the current poll (which will be ending tomorrow morning). One of the largest sections of the main RP site will be the Grammarian. It is going to be an exhaustive section on writing in English effectively and with impeccable grammar. Your help is greatly appreciated.

There are a few new authors who have joined in the fun. I am looking forward to the new manuscripts in a few weeks.

FTP!

One of the segments cut from last week’s failed SEP was the update for Flash in the Pan. Oh, my word! The M3 Readers are so very creative, and quick, and creative, and prolific, and creative! If you have not stopped by the FTP page recently, you are absolutely missing out on some of the best flash anywhere.

The book for February already has 55 entries in only its first six weeks! This promises to be the best set of flashes assembled. If you are not already one of the FTP Flashers, now is a great time to try your hand at it. Click on the Flash in the Pan menu button under the header for the whys and wherefores.

Right Turn, Clyde!

Right turn, Clyde.

One of the things Clyde wondered over the entire insurance/bank debacle was how much of a dystopian society we already are. In Friday Follies, one of my responses to Sherry was we are already living in a dystopian society. This tenet is not something which emerged over the course of the last few weeks; rather, it is one which has been formed and solidified over a number of decades.

WARNING: THIS WILL NOT BE A POLITICAL DISCUSSION. IF YOU CANNOT KEEP YOUR POLITICS TO YOURSELF, PLEASE PROCEED TO A SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLET IMMEDIATELY.

(In case you missed the allusion please view the film clip.)

One thing (of many, but only one we will focus on today) strikes me as very odd. Our Internet society is driven full force by an overwhelming sense of fear and paranoia.

Banners and articles and security software designers warn us there are trolls, poised with bots, awaiting our next post to spam it with comments to bring down the reputations of our sites. Cookies are no longer baked confections of past generations, but are now ways of revealing our secret, wondering searches to advertisers who want to sell us precisely for what we seek (or some unreasonably priced facsimile). An entire industry was borne of identity theft.

Every single one of the companies purporting to protect us holds the information in question. When we do not like the way they perform, we move to someone else with no guarantee said information moves with us. Have you forgotten everything someone else wished you would not remember?

It is a process.

As we scurry to accomplish what we feel we must in a (day, hour, minute), we fail to think of the automated processes which make all we accomplish readily accessible. No? A few examples, then?

  • Assembly lines: vehicles, computers, frozen food
  • Pipelines: gasoline pumps, natural gas appliances, running water
  • Scheduling: autodrafts, goods delivery, sleep

We do not consider any of these automated processes invasive. In fact, we have come to rely on them to provide us a stable environment in which to take care of things we find more important. Personally, I would rather someone else deliver the water for my hot bath than carrying it to a fire to heat it before I poured it into the tub. You?

All of them require our information to be shared and transmitted. How can the water provider know how much water to supply until your consumption is measured and added to the consumption of others? Are you uncomfortable someone knows how much water you use?

Enter Ape

Where do we draw the line between the convenient society we enjoy and dystopia? By definition dystopia is an imagined place where everything is bad. In my experience, bad is often as individual an assessment as beauty.

Ugli is in the eye of the beholder.

In the splitting of responsibilities, we often choose our own based on our abilities, interests and the palatable nature of the tasks on offer. It is a classic example of give and take. While we can only ensure our own performances, we are at the mercy of the others in the equation to act with the same (or greater) integrity as we employ. Integrity is so subjective as to be on par with both bad and beauty.

Our information can be used to provide us with services we enjoy and prefer just as easily as it can for services we do not. Are we willing to give up the ones we do in order to prevent the ones we do not?

What was the question?

Always with the questions.

If we consider our conveniences, at what point to we cease to be self-reliant and cede personal responsibility to those who have the tasks we have chosen to give? In short, the conveniences necessitate our relying on someone else to provide for our own (and usually the common) good. Despite our individuality and protestations to the contrary, we are very much alike.

More importantly, do we forfeit our rights for complaint when we have no working knowledge of the tasks we do not personally pursue? In the example of running water, how can we complain there is no water when we do not understand our own actions have disturbed the process?

It is enough to make an ape wonder.

Until next time,

Red Signature

~~~~~~~~~~


Where is the line? What is your version of dystopia? Is living in a state depicted in the video dystopian? Why or why not? If we forgo the sharing of our “personal” information, how do we form societal bonds?

Yes, Clyde is full of questions tonight. Any of the ones from the text are up for discussion as well.

PS M3 only needs 60 new American visitors to reach 20,000. With whom can you share M3?

(c) Red Dwyer 2012
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26 Comments

  1. Your posts are so rich with information and things to think about. For now I will answer the question about dystopia. For me dystopia is like Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road” or other similar type apocalyptic or post plague type storyline, even “The Walking Dead.” It’s a world when no one is safe. There are many situations where there’s mass destruction, devastation, and death. But dystopia for me is when it’s every man for himself, and we are so afraid, we lose that element of humanity which moves us to aid one another or to have compassion. Being forced into violence and ruthlessness in order to survive is the kind of world I don’t want to exist in. I think I’d have too much compassion to survive, unless of course I was protecting someone else.
    Sage Doyle recently posted..“Fay” Post 17My Profile

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    • You have accurately describe dystopia. You are going to enjoy the discussion we are going to have this week. When we explore the topic. Dystopia is very difficult to imagine because it necessarily means the loss of humanity in all the forms we know it…inclusive of the protection of others, be they children or Mate. The concept of friendship is lost.

      Reply
  2. I think we all experience situations which borderline on what dystopia would feel like.
    However, unless we live in a war-torn area where politics or religion are raring their ugly heads, helping mankind to divide and destroy…we will never really know what real dystopia is.

    As for the sharing, utilising and/or abusing of private information.
    I think movies such as ‘Enemy of the state’ and TV shows such as ‘Person of interest’, paint the view that most have concerning the uses of technology.

    I’m constantly torn on this topic, for example, I need the search engine bots and ping services to broadcast when I produce something I want to share.
    However, there is the side I dislike, the side where demographics have been built, without my say so, or without asking me how much I want to be paid for the privilege of using my information.
    Information given to various corporate ‘highest bidders’ to go towards a collective pool of resource to assist them in creating and generating wealth which is not passed back to those they acquired the information from in the first place.
    Phil Gayle_For Singles and Couples recently posted..Single and SecureMy Profile

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    • You will need to get to the Bad post before you come to realize dystopia is not the inconvenience and strife of post-apocalyptic or post-war scenarios. It is more dire on a human level. I suspect you should get that far before I have come to comment.

      I do not watch television, as it serves no true function in my life. While I have my days I dislike the ultimate uses of some of our information, I see the inherent value in a homogenized system of information retrieval. The places where it is most lacking is the single place which should bypass all others in its integrity and thoroughness: Systematic medical records. The sheer number of lives to be saved is staggering.

      Reply
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