blog.marcwiesner.com

I’m sure many have now heard about the heat Facebook is taking for their "information sharing" across websites. Apperently, purchases from certain merchants get fed into your Facebook feed unless you opt-out. That’s right, users are automatically opted in for this privacy invasion. Nice. Very friendly. Funny how this comes on the heels of that ridiculous Microsoft buy-in, isn’t it?

I heard on NPR that Facebook, responding to criticism of privacy invasion, said that users can set their privacy options to not display information aggrigated from other websites in case they didn’t want everyone to know what book or blender they just purchased. Deciding to tackle this before everyone I know discovers how many copies of The Rights of Man I’ll be purchasing, I open up Facebook and go to their privacy section. Here is the full content of that page (minus headers and ads):

Show your friends what you like and what you’re up to outside of Facebook. When you take actions on the sites listed below, you can choose to have those actions sent to your profile.Please note that these settings only affect notifications on Facebook. You will still be notified on affiliate websites when they send stories to Facebook. You will be able to decline individual stories at that time.No sites have tried sending stories to your profile

That’s it. Here are the two things that jump out at me. 1) There are no sites listed below so I don’t even know what sites to be wary of (read, unmarked minefield). 2) There’s no settings to control. There’s no way I can tell Facebook that I don’t want this information gathered, traded, used for marketing, or displayed on my own or EVERYONE’s mini-feed.

Boiler-plated this seems a passive way of saying that they aren’t sharing WHERE this information will be collected from, WHAT they’re wispering about in dark corners, WHEN they will be publishing the information they gather, or WHO I can tell I want my privacy respected. My question is WHY does Facebook think it’s necessary to do this in such a shady way? There are enough programs and apps for Facebook that people can add if they want this information shown.

They can opt-in.

Why can’t I opt out?

I think I’ve figured out what bothers me about most Europeans I meet traveling; they tend to put a fair amount of effort in trying to find or recreate the Europe they left behind. Despite being in a very foreign country they expect the same standards of clean, language, privacy, public behavior and what not that’s found in Europe. The shock of not finding this familiarity seems to be more than most Europeans can handle. Thus, the communities of people who have nothing more in common other than their place of birth arise out of a smoke of disappointment and dissatisfaction.

In the west we usually criticize such insular communities. Indian, Korean, Chinese communities, it’s thought, create a buffer which impedes integration. We think it bad when people live in these communities and become so insulated they can’t speak a national language but what contributions to Europeans bring to their communities? Are western restaurants as popular in Asia as Asian restaurants are in the west? Do we have many scientists and scholars who decide to move into China to help with academic research or philosophical inquiry?

People from English speaking countries traveling here in China seem to be particularly off. Not as a rule, just as a general observation, people from Australia, England, Canada, and the USA react remarkably poorly to such a foreign place where English ability are by no means an expected norm. I suspect the problem can be considered as stemming from a Continentinal Island mentality due to the fact that we aren’t really pushed to learn a foreign language since we don’t really have any neighbors who make it necessary. While the USA’s southern neighbor Mexico would seem to give us a good reason to learn Spanish it’s clear that this motivation is lost on most US citizens; a point which itself should speak to Mexico’s general status within America.

Monday’s tomorrow. That means that by way of my homework, I’ve got about forty pages of reading and 3.5 more pages of writing to get done. Not bad at all, really…I just have to plug those headphones in, drown out the world, and dive in.

I’ve found an absolutely wonderful essay on the unification of China written in Shanghai in the 1970’s. It’s sooooo laced with dogma it makes me smile. The author dismisses any personal traits that Qin Shi Huangdi may have had like charisma or ruthlessness and instead dismissed him as a person who was in the right place at the right time to represent the growing landlord class who wanted a united, feudal China to emerge for economic reasons.

I wonder if the author realizes how much his writing was influenced by his environment. I wonder if we realize the extent to which our writing is colored. Is it one of those things that you only see when you have the proper perspective of being outside of that world? Hmmmmm…

How reliant we have become on the internet to transport information. With the media blocks in China, what will historians deduce thirty years from now when they look back on this period? Because there were no bulletin board posts challenging gov’t position on Taiwan no body within China objected to the policies?

I suppose it’s the same problem we have now when we look at the past. Those who have had the skill to write have usually been the wealthy and educated. Those who would want to support the government of their nation. Now, though, the skill to write has been spread to dissenters so the opportunity to write is being removed. Is the spread of ideas, even dissenting ones, a right to be protected or a privilege that can be suspended?

If we say we respect the right for a government to act in what it sees as the best interests of its citizens by censoring an ‘outspoken minority,’ what about when this censorship becomes part of the classroom curriculum HERE? I was in a Chinese history class where the instructor (American, Caucasian, b/c it matters on cultural context) said that you CANNOT meet a Chinese person who doesn’t have a strong opinion Taiwan. Usually, she said, that opinion is that if China has to lose so many millions of lives to take that island, it would be justified. I know this isn’t true. On a common sense level it’s ridiculous to say that EVERYONE has a strong position on this subject. Second, I’ve spoke to people who’ve lived their entire lives in China who say that Taiwan isn’t an issue to them or their friends. LOTS of people care far more about the Chinese economy than relations with Taiwan. It seems to me that this instructor came to this view because the people she spoke with in China were either coached or selected by people with government interests (or she was horribly exaggerating).

If we accept foreign censorship, we end up censoring our selves and our youth.

I love the logic in this matter.

Problem: The USA isn’t secure.

International Solution: We all know what a cluster fuck that is.

Domestic Solution: Pass the Patriot Act so the government won’t have to worry about pesky things like privacy interfering with investigation or arrest of persons suspected of being a threat to the nation.

Domestic Result: 9/11 Commission reports that we are not any safer today than we were at the time of the attacks.

Reaction: Extend the Patriot Act.

Look, if it isn’t working, why support it? Clearly other steps need to be taken. Maybe if the USA and Britain weren’t such asses about dividing up the Middle East in such an exploitive manner we wouldn’t be such easy targets for hate. And it’s too bad we didn’t throw a fraction of what this war is costing into research or alternative fuels to resolve that reliance on oil.

I’m sure this will solve everything though. Fifty years from now, smooth sailing….I wonder how much a bunker three miles under the equator would cost? hmm…

In case anyone missed the news, new numbers from China raise their economy’s rank to #4 in the world, surpassing Britain. Germany, the current #3 economy shouldn’t get complacent; China is attempting to make more of a presence in the global auto industry. Already an attractive site for foreign manufactures, China is poised to use its position within the WTO as a springboard for Chinese cars to be sold outside of China. Just as people scoffed at the idea of a Korean company successfully selling cars in the US, so too are people naturally sceptical of Chinese imports even showing up in American show rooms.

Remember, Japanese, German, and American car companies are already manufacturing cars and components in China. It’s a lot easier to replicate a product one’s you’ve already been part of the team assembling them.

All opportunities for pardon being exhausted, Tookie Williams, notorious for the creation of the Crips gang, was executed this morning (time of death, 12:35 AM).

Given, the Crips gang, and ensuing gang tensions, have claimed countless lives either as murders or just being turned to garbage through drug use, to kill Tookie for the murder of four people almost three decades ago just seems like an emotional reaction to his role in founding the Crips. Yeah, bad shit to establish what is now a major gang, but if he’s in jail though most of their career (where he was rehabilitated, wrote children’s books, and became and advocate AGAINST gang violence) how much can he be blamed for the organization and leadership to turn a few thugs into such a major gang?

By denying clemency for Tookie, the only thing we express is how quickly our burn-him-at-the-stake, eye-for-an-eye, Christian vengeance emotions can take over our minds. Of course, I’m using ‘our’ in the general sense. Does not religion teach mercy and forgiveness as the highest ideal? First, if Tookie is reformed and actually advocating for a positive change in society, doesn’t that make him better than those with hate and contempt in their hearts for him? Second, do we punish the crime or the person who committed it? If the person has changed and his past action is what being punished at what point do we forgive?

Perhaps that level of benevolence is beyond most of us. Should that be true, the State of California may have executed a man who attained a superior spiritual posture through his incarceration.

Taiwan’s Nationalist Party, the Guomindang (國民黨, GMD, or KMT in the old rominazition system) seems to have done a tidy job of sweeping though Taiwan’s recent elections. Most American’s who remember the GMD from the histories should recall that it was the GMD who was forced out of China by the Communist Party in 1949. The appreciable irony is, though, that the GMD’s victory could mean an easing of tensions between the two nations (notice my bias).

The reason for this is because a strong victory for the GMD this year could carry into the 2008 presidential election. Since 2000, the office of president has been occupied by Chen Shui-bian (the circumstances of who’s re-election are quite fascinating) of the Democratic Progressive Party (民進黨, or Min Jin Dang). While in office, Chen has been remarkably vocal in his desire to see an independent Taiwan.

Should the GMD grab the presidency in 2008 and advance its holdings of legislative seats a more cooperative Taiwan may emerge at a time when China’s rising economic power gives a bonus to friendly relations

Is any body surprised that the oil companies have posted record profits? Any excuse that prices at the pump are proportional to oil cost may now take a flying leap out the window. The business practices of these companies is clearly a case of price gouging; taking advantage of the limited supply and increased demand to disproportionately drive up prices.

Real blame, however, should fall on two places; the government and the citizenry. The government should have long ago realized the dangers of becoming so dependent on a commodity and yet oil remains a key component in energy production and transportation. Had the government crafted policy to reflect the advice of environmental scientists the ecological and economical impact of our current situation could have been avoided. America also has one of the worst public transit systems of any of the developed nations. This is largely due to the lobbying power of the automobile and oil producing companies who have long been responsible for the replacement of rail lines with roads to encourage consumption. If the government had structured tax incentives to encourage the purchasing of alternative energy or more fuel efficient vehicles as opposed to offering huge incentives to people buying SUVs the demand among the general population could have been curtailed.

The people, for their part, should not have to wait for government to take initiative (that’s one of the things our government is worst at). If people are so sick of paying so much for gas they should take it on themselves to buy alternative energy vehicles and demand better public transportation. They should hold elected officials to energy promises.

Personally, I would much father see my money at the pump going back into initiatives that help the environment and the energy situation. There are many countries that deter excessive fuel consumption by increasing taxes on fuel and automobiles; thereby keeping the people who use roads paying for them, making available funds to maintain and enhance the public transit system, and ensuring that the environmental impact of the auto industry can be kept in check. I’d much rather have the tax on gas raised to help public transportation than the public transit fares raised to support roads for for drivers.

Witness now the unraveling of the Republican Machine. First Myers pulls out of the nomination process. Now we’ve gotten the first of what I hope to be many indictments of that republican right that has been such a global malfeasance.

What I want to know is where is our inquisition? Clinton lies about sleeping around (something that’s none of the Federal Government’s business anyway) and he gets reamed by Ken Starr. Bush and his clique sends us to war in Iraq under the lie of weapons of masdestruction (of which there are NONE), then they violate national security by naming an undercover CIA agent. I could give a damn that Clinton got some on the side, it’s not like he killed Monica after he messed around with her. Where is the justice for the tens of thousands killed as a result of Bush’s perjury?

Now that the ball is rolling on inditing members of the hard-line Republican Right I prey that it keeps going. I prey for momentum. I prey for justice.