First, I don't think the only or necessary consequence of people owning their data is that no one else can use it or make something of value out of it.
Think of it as a raw material that individuals own as they can mineral rights. I can imagine circumstances in which individuals may want to sell (or lease) their data to companies that might sort, aggregate, analyze, qualify or otherwise manipulate it to create some salable information. Just because companies get it "for nothing" now, doesn't mean it has to be that way for companies to make a profit.
Second, if companies want to charge for products or services that are now "free", fine. Let them. Then consumers can decide what such goods and services are really worth to them. They might discover that a lot of them are only worth the price when the price is zero.
Yes, they've dusted off the anti-Snowdon strategy: discredit the source, downplay the substance. You're right. The meat of the matter is that the DNC played favorites while professing neutrality--and got the gullible, sycophantic media to dance to their tune.
Good point. In all of this it seems like there are several discreet issues tangled up in one discussion. My impression (as someone twenty years out of parenthood and forty years out of school) is that we mix up:
a.) common core - the idea that there is a base body of knowledge to which all students should be exposed, whether schooled in California, Massachusetts, North Dakota or Florida
b.) standardized testing - the idea that there should be one method, consistently designed, delivered and evaluated, for measuring students mastery of a.)
c.) teacher/school evaluation - the idea that there should be some objective scale by which communities can determine if teachers are doing their jobs well or poorly
For the record, I endorse a.) but wonder about b.) and c.), mainly because I believe there are many non-academic, social conditions that affect their outcomes.
This may seem pedantry, but the last sentence in the fourth paragraph is problematic for this nitpicker-in-chief:
"And Schneier deals extensively with social and moral pressures that effect trust."
Does he really mean "affect," in the sense of "influence" or "alter", or does he really mean "effect," in the sense of "create" or "cause to happen"?
I'm guessing the former, but I'll just have to buy the book.
Altho I agree that the inertia of keeping records trumps the work of evaluating them, the large financial services company I work for is turning with the tide, starting to focus on deletion and destruction, mainly for potential liability reasons. Not just aged documents, but prior versions, drafts, notes, etc.
It makes me wonder what the historians of the future will have left for primary sources--besides the final, signed-off Establishment-sanctioned records of events. Are we on the road to compromising their ability to determine and describe What Really Happened, and thus our own ability to understand our past?
Could John M. Blair write "The Control of Oil", or Ron Chernow "Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr." fifty years hence?
One route to a healthy skepticism is learning to smell crapola when it's served steaming on the plate in front of you. To that end, Stephen Downes has a nice, economical list of bad thinking examples. It's here:
http://web.uvic.ca/psyc/skelton/Teaching/General%20Readings/Logical%20Falllacies.htm.
There's also Harry G. Frankfurt's great little book, 'On Bullshit' (the title of which the New York Times would not print on its best seller list!). It's a great take on the subject from a philosopher's point of view.
Cheers!
Slashdot Mirror
First, I don't think the only or necessary consequence of people owning their data is that no one else can use it or make something of value out of it.
Think of it as a raw material that individuals own as they can mineral rights. I can imagine circumstances in which individuals may want to sell (or lease) their data to companies that might sort, aggregate, analyze, qualify or otherwise manipulate it to create some salable information. Just because companies get it "for nothing" now, doesn't mean it has to be that way for companies to make a profit.
Second, if companies want to charge for products or services that are now "free", fine. Let them. Then consumers can decide what such goods and services are really worth to them. They might discover that a lot of them are only worth the price when the price is zero.
Yes, they've dusted off the anti-Snowdon strategy: discredit the source, downplay the substance. You're right. The meat of the matter is that the DNC played favorites while professing neutrality--and got the gullible, sycophantic media to dance to their tune.
Good point. In all of this it seems like there are several discreet issues tangled up in one discussion. My impression (as someone twenty years out of parenthood and forty years out of school) is that we mix up:
a.) common core - the idea that there is a base body of knowledge to which all students should be exposed, whether schooled in California, Massachusetts, North Dakota or Florida
b.) standardized testing - the idea that there should be one method, consistently designed, delivered and evaluated, for measuring students mastery of a.)
c.) teacher/school evaluation - the idea that there should be some objective scale by which communities can determine if teachers are doing their jobs well or poorly
For the record, I endorse a.) but wonder about b.) and c.), mainly because I believe there are many non-academic, social conditions that affect their outcomes.
This may seem pedantry, but the last sentence in the fourth paragraph is problematic for this nitpicker-in-chief: "And Schneier deals extensively with social and moral pressures that effect trust." Does he really mean "affect," in the sense of "influence" or "alter", or does he really mean "effect," in the sense of "create" or "cause to happen"? I'm guessing the former, but I'll just have to buy the book.
Altho I agree that the inertia of keeping records trumps the work of evaluating them, the large financial services company I work for is turning with the tide, starting to focus on deletion and destruction, mainly for potential liability reasons. Not just aged documents, but prior versions, drafts, notes, etc. It makes me wonder what the historians of the future will have left for primary sources--besides the final, signed-off Establishment-sanctioned records of events. Are we on the road to compromising their ability to determine and describe What Really Happened, and thus our own ability to understand our past? Could John M. Blair write "The Control of Oil", or Ron Chernow "Titan: the Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr." fifty years hence?
One route to a healthy skepticism is learning to smell crapola when it's served steaming on the plate in front of you. To that end, Stephen Downes has a nice, economical list of bad thinking examples. It's here: http://web.uvic.ca/psyc/skelton/Teaching/General%20Readings/Logical%20Falllacies.htm. There's also Harry G. Frankfurt's great little book, 'On Bullshit' (the title of which the New York Times would not print on its best seller list!). It's a great take on the subject from a philosopher's point of view. Cheers!