There is a blog post by Rob Domanski that links back to an earlier post of mine about Twitter. He quoted my description of Twitter. As you may know, since I joined Twitter a few weeks back, I twit about what I’m doing along with many other geeks who seem to think that other people care what we are doing. I know I enjoy receiving updates about what everybody is doing. When I first read Rob’s post, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I guess I just see a distinction between what I and other bloggers and Twitters do and what Big Brother did in 1984.
Blogging, and now Twitting, are somewhat of an exhibitionism. We lay it all out for others to see. Perhaps it’s a need for attention or we didn’t get enough hugs growing up. I don’t know. The point is that through blogging, and now Twitter, many of us have made our lives “open source”. We are wide open to scrutiny and development from other more experienced people. I know that in many instances, I am careful about what I do because there are so many eyes on me, by my own doing. I actually behave much better now than I did when I was younger as a result of my public presence. Let me go back to what I said before, it’s of my own doing. In fact, I invite feedback if it will help me become a better person. Given the public presence and scrutiny, people with open source lives tend to avoid doing stuff that would bring on the watchful eye of Big Brother. We want the world, not The Man, to know what we’re doing.
In 1984, George Orwell’s vision of the future had the Government spying on people to make them conform to mindless existences. The language was simplified to eliminate complex thought. Peoples’ televisions spied on them. Even the spies had spies. I see more similarities between political correctness and 1984 than what people like me do. It’s shockingly horrible for a person to have certain thoughts or say certain words in our society. Even in our laws, we distinguish between just regular old crime and hate crime. These things aim at controlling our thoughts. Once we’ve thought or said certain things, we get branded by society as haters. In 1984, and increasingly amongst “progressives”, you get feedback on becoming the person that you should be, by their standards, whether you want it or not.
This is at odds with the self-reporting that bloggers and twitters do. In fact, even though we can be tracked and watched through our incessant web-hibitionism, we routinely express ourselves freely and openly about all manner of things, which is forbidden in 1984. Yes, the government is capable of tracking us; but if Big Brother comes to get us, we won’t just quietly disappear. People will notice because we stopped posting. Ironically, being open and trackable is exactly what protects us from Big Brother.
Is living “open source” for everybody? No, probably not. If your name is John or Sarah Connor, you may want to lay low for a few years.
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