Virginia Woolf at age 20 Inspired by a reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Joshua Rothman, writing for The New Yorker, offers some rather enchanting reflections on a profoundly important meaning of privacy that cuts much deeper than the word’s contemporary framing in purely political terms: These days, when we use the word “privacy,” it…
Tag: privacy
Recommended Reading 7
This week’s collection of recommended articles, essays, blog posts, and (as always) an interesting video or two, covers economic collapse and cultural dystopia; the question of monetary vs. human values; the ubiquity of disinformation in America and the accompanying need for true education of the deeply humanizing sort; the ongoing debate over climate change and…
Recommended Reading 2
Topics in this week’s edition of Recommended Reading include: the ongoing eating of everybody else by the wealthy elite; the crisis in America’s education system; the continued rise of online and real-world surveillance; the clash between scientistic reductionism and more humane views of human consciousness and psychology; and a recent UFO sighting.
Recommended Reading 1
In the wake of my exit from Facebook a couple of weeks ago — something I still intend to write about here in the near future, in tandem with an explanation of my reasons for leaving Google as well — I’ve taken the time, energy, and attention that I was using to post things over…
A real-life Skynet?
Last week Wired magazine made waves by publishing an epic article about a vast spy center that’s currently being built by America’s National Security Agency in the Utah desert. The real bombshell was the revelation that the project is ground zero for a galactically powerful and all-encompassing surveillance program that targets literally all communications and…
A vow of silence, a cyber-sabbatical: My plan for 2011
A week ago I announced on Facebook that I would be abandoning social media in 2011. This drew a flood of comments and questions, both online and in person, from friends and family. So I thought I would inaugurate this year of my partial unplugging from the Matrix by explaining here, in what will be…