Reclusland

‘For now, surrendering personal information is the cost for asking questions and getting answers quickly. All of the privacy measures are cumbersome…There’s really no solution now — except abstinence. And if you choose not to use online tools, you’re not a member of the 21st century.”

TMBCHR ‘s recent piece on surveillance as a key factor of ubiquitous computing sparked what was a large pile of undifferentiated research I’d been hauling around in my online presence of email, google toolbar bookmarks, and unfinished wordpress posts.  Here is the first of what I hope will be another three-part-series of essays on the topic.

To start off with, surveillance is only a bad thing if you don’t trust the people doing the surveilling.  Given the popularity of social networking sites, blogs, and pretty much all of web 2.0, we actually do want people to know what we’re doing.  We just also want to have a little more control over who sees it, and what it is that they see.  However, at the same time, we are totally fascinated with being able to see what other people are up to.  Like animals in the zoo, our own unique experiences are becoming things of fascination for others to immerse themselves in.  See the 80′s “Cult of Personality”, or any of today’s reality TV shows for evidence of this.

The true desire I see manifesting itself in these different ways is, in the end, to have an honest objective view of both the self and of others.  Sure, people tend to lie on their myspace or facebook accounts, making themselves out to be better than they are.  But really, they’re lying to themselves just as badly in real life.  If we were to get to know them, we’d become aware of this pretty quickly, and once we see through their fakery, we realize that what is actually being shown is that person’s own conflicted view of themselves.

What we’re slowly beginning to realize is that it’s in our best interest to give up any kind of false pretenses.  This can be seen, for example, in the world of the lesbian porn/female MMA fighting circuit:  “In my own fighting career, I was initially asked by my manager to keep the queer porn under wraps because a lot of the MMA circuit is run by pretty conservative and homophobic people, but we both soon realized that in this day in age with the internet that really isn’t possible. So now, I am pretty out about it all.”

And we realize that this feels good!  The truth is a much easy foundation for the self, because “Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained. “

In a larger, more social sense, truly representing ourselves to others will allow for the best possible decisions to be made by everybody.  Good decision making is based on truth, on knowing what is actually going on around you.  It is in your best interest to portray your self as accurately as possible in the world, because it allows others to react to you honestly (and also because it encourages them to be just as honest).

Honestly reflecting the view of reality from within your own perceiving center for others to reference is how we all get to know each other, and how we get to know ourselves.  This is how we can find the splits in our own quantum-like-self, the flaws within our interpretations of (and passage through) informational reality.  It is a higher-dimensional echo-location-sonar type of thing, closely related to Marshall McLuhan’s echoing tribal space.  And it’s base function is honest representation at every moment.

In a world where surveillance is ever present, we will all be on our best behavior.  Because not only is “Big Brother” watching us, but so is everyone else!  And in the end, if we’re all watching each other, than we will all also be watching out for each other.

We might see someone we dislike, yet who interacts with many other people, and who seems to get along with all them.  This makes us think, “hey, maybe I’m wrong about that guy”.  And the same goes for seeing someone we like behaving badly towards others.  This leads us to give them honest feedback on how their behaviors effect us, and allows them to adjust themselves accordingly.  It almost forces us to move toward better behavior, as long as the channels of communication are kept open in both directions.

This might not sound like a lot fun.  After all:
“The only way to prevent reputations from being damaged in the process is to always “be on your best behavior” in public. Frankly, that’s no fun. No more wild boys nights out? No more getting silly and stupid with your friends? No – not unless you’re willing to live with the consequences of having it plastered online in the morning.”

But in the end, the more open we keep the lines of communication, the more quantum-like our behavior will become:

“When we reach the point where online anonymity has ended, instead of getting to be who we really are, the fact that we’ve become so aware of the fact that we’re always being recorded, photographed, tracked, and traced, will have actually created a slightly altered personality instead. Like reality TV show contestants, the act of being observed will change our behavior. Our personal brand image will become our public identity and therefore our identity.” (emphasis mine)

Being watched will force us to justify our behavior, like photons in a double slit experiment.  We change based on observation anyway, and more observation simply means we will change more quickly.  As we all begin doing so, we will discover that those who behave honestly and openly are those who are actually happy, because again, “Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained. “

As our desires are made manifest, and their results are shared with more and more people, we will be forced to begin to heal the splits in our personalities.  Why do we work hard to get something that doesn’t make us happy?  What does actually make us happy?  Don’t know?  Look up people on the internet who truly are happy, who are voted by the global tribe to be examples of the best humanity has to offer.

Think that this just means we’re all going to eventually become like vapid debutantes and celebrities?  Well, that’s only going to happen if no one steps up and does it the right way.  What do you think works better, someone who’s actually happy and satisfied in their life, or someone who only reflects others false goals back at them?  Eventually, #whatworks will always triumph over #whatmerelylooksgood.

We are all already super-empowered individuals.  So, if you think you’re better than some of those celebrity types, prove it!  We have reached the most technologically advanced, richest state of civilization in recorded history!  START MAKING USE OF IT! (peak oil and collapse of civilization aside, we are still culturally richer than any past civilization has ever been)

And the coolest thing?  This isn’t something we have to put into action.  It’s something that has already begun, and the best way to deal with it is to accept and help bring it into being.  As McLuhan said years ago: “We (must) comprehend the process of decentralism and retribalization, and accept its outcome while moving to control and modify the dynamics of change.”

(on update Jan 18th: Just a little editing, plus corrected the link to Global Guerrillas, had the wrong article previously…)

(on update Jan 21st: A little more editing, plus: “oooh! pictures!”)

(part 2 is available here)