I didn't notice until just now, but back on March 5th, Facebook announced that they were opening up the "political views" field on user profiles to a free-form field. Previously there had only been a drop-down menu of limited choices, including various degrees of "liberal" and "conservative," along with "libertarian," and "apathetic," thrown in for good measure. As an anarcho-capitalist, I originally labeled myself as libertarian, but later simply chose to be unlisted for the category of "political views," in the name of accuracy.
Now it's wide open, so you can type in whatever you want. As you begin to type, it'll even auto-complete with other things people have typed in already. When I typed in "A-N-A-R-C-H-I-S-T," it gave up on me someplace halfway through the word, when it realized I wasn't trying to claim I was some sort of hyper-political 16th century Anabaptist. After making sure I had spelled it right, I clicked on my newly claimed political view only to find that there is nobody in any of my direct contacts or networks who has affiliated as an anarchist. How very sad.
So I thought I'd put out the word to anybody who, like I did, missed this update on Facebook and always wanted more options for that category. It's not exactly the end-all be-all of world wide web communications opportunities, but Facebook certainly has its place in my browsing habits. If any of you would like to friend me, please do and indicate that you know me because you're a reader of my blog. I'm always interested to learn more about my readers, and what sorts of great things they're getting up to.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Facebook "Political Views" Liberated!
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9 comments:
I'm the only one who's "apolitical." Truly we are Facebook visionaries.
I imagine they left it out because the general principles of anarchism reject everything that Facebook stands for, from it's big brother-esque privacy violations/data collection and retention to it's corporate sponsorship and shady government involvement..
Maybe if you'd spelled anarchism like you practice it you might have had found a couple other P-O-S-E-R-S..
Actually anonymous, the interesting thing about Facebook is that it's completely voluntary. If I don't want them to have a specific piece of information, I don't have to provide it. They don't come to my house with pieces of paper and guns and force me into prison if I decide not to fill out the "my favorite books" section of their website. In fact, you don't even have to sign up at all if you don't want to.
I hope you stick around Ibidus long enough to gain an understanding of how I actually practice anarchism. You could scarcely have gotten an idea by reading one of my shortest entries on a practically unrelated topic. But I'm sure you didn't come to your judgment THAT hastily.
Also optional is your membership in facebook, but you chose to opt-in. So, even indirectly, you're still contributing to a decidedly anti-anarchic structure.
Oh, wait. You're an anarcho-CAPITALIST. My mistake, you'll fit in with the rest of the hot topic anarchists on facebook just fine.
That's right, I'm an anarcho-capitalist. The only moral society is one based on the voluntary exchange of value. We could throw away that idea and just hope everybody survives somehow, but we see how that worked out in the USSR. I figure it's best if we all trade labor for what goods and services we want. I assume that's how you already live your daily life, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Can you help explain how it is that you're opposed to the social networking site Facebook, when you're simultaneously using the social bookmarking site StumbleUpon (which I assume you used to find my website in the first place)? StumbleUpon collects what could be easily viewed as FAR more sensitive information on your web browsing habits. They also accept money from people and corporations to drive traffic to their sites, making them an entrepreneurial and capitalist organization. And, you can get information on the browsing habits of others by checking out their profiles. I apologize if you haven't used this service (which I personally love). It's just that I've gotten the bulk of my traffic from there this week, so I assumed.
I also can't help but notice that you've insulted me twice in as many comments. Do you think this helps or hurts your arguments in the eyes of reasonable people?
So I've had my Facebook profile set like this for some time:
Political Views: None of your beeswax.
Religious Views: Also none of your beeswax.
No matches for political views, but there were 7 others who put "none of your beeswax" under religion, which I found interesting. Like anonymous, I had qualms about using Facebook (your world, delivered to the NSA...) but got over it when I realized I could just put "other" for everything if I wanted to.
For what it's worth I don't mind signing up for Facebook because if the NSA wants my information, they're going to find it. I'm not going to stop living my life because of the government. That, and they have all the resources (i.e. firepower) they need to make Myspace, Google, Verizon, Comcast, Target, Guitar Center, Amazon.com, Netflix, eBay, all of my former employers, my college, my library, my neighbors, my family, and my friends give up information on me. All they have to do is threaten legal action, or point a gun in someone's face.
When that's how they do business, you're not exactly changing the world in a positive way if you go live in a cave and eat rabbits over a fire, like anonymous must to remain consistent in values. Paranoia is what that amount of gratuitous force is designed to create. Integrity is standing up and saying it's wrong when somebody justifies it as moral.
Heh nice, I also have mine set as anarchist. My religious views are set as " mischief, mayhem, soap ", nothing like some Fight Club.
Just stumbled this, nice blog.
I'm also set as 'Anarchist Buddhist' (Buddhism as the only truly political force that has been given 'pseudo-religion' status in the west? But, for me, it reeks of anarchism too).
I always connected 'capital' with money but it looks like you've put me right on that. But isn't value simply 'value', human and otherwise... exchanged goods/endeavours and can be separated, in an anarchist framework, from the concept of financial/monetary representation.
Anyway I really enjoy your blog a lot. It makes me want to write a lot. My poems are here if you feel like a read:
www.myspace.com/ajodonnell
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