Comments on: The Age of Abundant Communication and the Decline of Privacy

By: Aaron Ross Powell

Aaron Ross Powell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:28:32 +0000

Sam, Symbolic Order vanished through a stupid mistake on my part. I thought the domain name was on auto-renew -- and it wasn't. So now it's in the possession of a domain squatter. I've moved all my blogging here and Trevor blogs (very occasionally and not recently) at reasonworks.org.

I'll check out occidentaldissent.com. Thanks for the pointer.

By: Sam Davidson

Sam Davidson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:47:47 +0000

Hi Mr. Powell,

I found your website after searching the 'net for symbolicorder.com I used to read it occasionally a long time ago. Whatever happened to it? Anyway, speaking of 'abundant communications' and such, I would like to invite you to read www.occidentaldissent.com, a blog focused on race and culture.

By: Aaron Ross Powell

Aaron Ross Powell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:28:32 +0000

By: Sam Davidson

Sam Davidson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:47:47 +0000

By: Aaron Ross Powell

Aaron Ross Powell — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:53:56 +0000

@MorganJ: I'm not sure what "living in a bubble" means. It doesn't strike me
that people of my generation--or younger ones--go out any less, get together
with their friends, any less, party any less, etc., than prior generations.
We don't have official clubs so much, true, and we attend church less, but
that only means we've shifted our social activities. There was a time when
people were convinced the telephone would destroy social cohesion.

(I haven't read "Bowling Alone," but going through the reviews and
descriptions on Amazon, I imagine I wouldn't agree with its conclusions.)

By: MorganJ

MorganJ — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:40:23 +0000

I see the openness of the younger set as reaction to the walls that exist in our society. The greatest generation had more official social outlets. They were connected to their world. They knew their place in it. We say it was a smaller world. If you read Bowling Alone, it talks about clubs and how the baby boomers stopped joining these clubs. As gen X'ers we were never exposed to these official social connects so we as social animals made up new methods to connect with the world around us. Our world is bigger, but bigger is also scary and so walls form. We pretend that all the people on facebook are our friends and we live in a bubble.

By the way I followed your link from FF and there are WH invasion players in VA.

By: The BoBo Carnival of Politics - August 30, 2009 Edition | The BoBo Files

The BoBo Carnival of Politics - August 30, 2009 Edition | The BoBo Files — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:26:35 +0000

[...] Powell presents The Age of Abundant Communication and the Decline of Privacy posted at Aaron Ross [...]

By: Aaron Ross Powell

Aaron Ross Powell — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:59:09 +0000

The question about whether online indiscretions will lead to regret or if there will be a change in societal conventions is crucial and you're absolutely right to bring it up. I'm inclined to think society will change, if only because, over time, those kids who posted drunk photos on Facebook will become the employers.

Though it may also become a moot issue as teenagers better use the privacy settings built into social networking sites. An employer isn't likely to hack a Facebook profile when evaluating a potential employee.

By: Mike W

Mike W — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:58:37 +0000

I like your analogy of material abundance to communication abundance. I wonder, though, whether the generation living in the Internet era will come to regret and change their habits or whether societal conventions will change so that employers ignore indiscretions online.

My first post-undergrad job was writing for a newspaper, and I can still find the articles online. I wouldn't link them here, though. They're awful. As a consequence of experiences like that, I think, I am careful about what I post online with my name associated.

I own a vanity domain that uses my real name. I've thought about setting up a blog there. And had second thoughts. And then considered again...