Re: big brother

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From: Tom Sweetnam (savamutt@trailnet.com)
Date: Sun Apr 30 2000 - 13:42:51 PDT


"The site is a joke, and IMO, not particularly funny. I guess I'm not sure why I fell for it (yeah, I know gullible isn't in the dictionary), but now I'd really like to know what their privacy policy is..."

Hmmmm....I think there's a poll on that site keeping track of votes as to whether one thought the site funny or not. About 22% of those sucked in failed the risibility quotient as I recall, and about 76% (including myself), thought it was a pretty funny site. I'd venture to say that about 20% of Americans don't think anything is funny anyway, no matter what the content or intent, so I don't know how much faith we should put in such a poll as a yardstick of national mirth. It's probably representative though.

I love slapstick sites like that myself. The ones that catch self-importance with its pants down. I guess it's all a matter of taste though. My background is in English, not in engineering or computer science, so I'm the kind of aesthete who tends to think that idiotic redundancies like "functionality" are absolutely funny, and I see the people sucked into using such non-word marketing hyperbole as being even bigger suckers than those upset at seeing a baboon staring back at them from their "FBI" file. Yet how many FoRK members do you suppose would see the humor in such a thing as I do? I can think of two maybe, that's about all.

And as regards "privacy" in this country anymore, well, it's pretty much a placebo issue don't you think? A good detective or marketing researcher with access to a credit bureau or your cookie file can tell you more about yourself than you ever knew about yourself. I think the best policy is just not to hide anything to begin with. Throw your life out there in the public arena. Give it too them in their faces. The more people know about most people the less they want to know. That's the best way to protect your privacy that I can think of. ;-)


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