Wikileaks: Completely Predictable

Wikileaks is a byproduct the convergence of two trends: de-nationalism and loss of privacy. These two trends aren’t going away, and therefore opinions on Wikileaks are about as relevant as opinions on stem cell research: it’s happening, whether or not we like it.

De-nationalism

Many of the major issues today are caused by the fact that many of the world’s institutions are larger in scope than the geopolitical entities that attempt to govern them.  Our world is geopolitically organized into nation-states, and yet its institutions are increasingly global. Examples of frictions caused by this abound: terrorism, piracy, the internet, and anti-drug laws are only the most oft cited.  In each case, enacting laws by a single government is unable to affect the overall problem, as the issue is global, not national. Even financial sector regulation falls into this category (find any WSJ article on Sarbanes Oxley if you don’t believe me).

Loss of Privacy

Robert Scoble wrote an article entitled “privacy reboot needed” that is dead on point here. His first rule of privacy: anything you put into a computer could be public. Anyone who hasn’t internalized this lesson is a vulnerability to himself and the organization he works for.

The Twain

This is where Wikileaks comes in. Government classified information leaked via the internet. My response: “well yeah…” 

The government, of course, has responded in very nation-state-y ways. Senators like our wonderful Joe Lieberman exerted pressure on corporations who provided payment services. The UK is holding Assange in solitary confinement without bail on charges that otherwise would not merit such treatment. And while the government didn’t need to steal the domain name, it definitely could have, via a constitutionally sketchy method first pioneered for use by the RIAA/MPAA and currently supported by the judiciary.

It’s important to note that the US has never won a pseudo-war. It’s currently losing the war on drugs and the war on piracy, while not doing much better on the war on terrorism. And, as it’s virtually impossible to shut down access to information that has made it onto the internet, the US isn’t going to win this one either.

The sad truth, nation-states: the internet is bigger than you are.

Morality

My argument here has nothing to do with morality whatsoever. I honestly don’t have an opinion on whether it’s moral to leak or to post classified government cables. Morality is only relevant when there is a choice to be made. Here, the only choice to be made is to accept reality or ignore it—the trends will continue regardless of what we think of them.

What happened when Bush blocked stem cell funding in 2001 for moral reasons? Oh right…Europe got a lead in stem cell research and nothing changed.

Update on Friday, December 10, 2010 at 4:11PM by Tristan Handy

Carne Ross makes much the same argument in HBR.  Quotable:

government’s monopoly on its own information is now a thing of the past.

Update on Friday, December 10, 2010 at 4:17PM by Tristan Handy

Paul Carr is dead wrong in TechCrunch. Or rather, I suppose I should say that he’s utterly myopic in his consideration of only the very nearest term of consequences rather than considering the historical trends and where they are going.  Yes, Paul, governments are now going to lock down information more tightly than they did previously.  But do you really think that’s a battle that they can ultimately win?  How will the world look in 10 years? 100?  Isn’t that what should ultimately color our thinking on this overall?

Paul would make a good public company CEO.

Update on Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 1:35PM by Tristan Handy

This is a much better TC article on how the US political response has been completely non-sensical. Quotable:

Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, has called for Julian Assange’s prosecution, despite the general consensus that he hasn’t actually committed any American crime. Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has a slightly clearer-eyed view; he wants the law changed so that Assange can be prosecuted as a terrorist. Joe Lieberman wants a criminal investigation of not just Assange but also the New York Times.

Finally Someone Put the Answer to "Why is Social Media Cool?" into (non-stupid) Words

I’ve recently been doing a bunch of work with my good friends at ArgyleSocial, a player in the social media management space.  As anyone who finds themselves directing chunks of their resources to building what could pejoratively be described as “a Twitter app” must, I find myself now having to talk to my friends about why I think social media is important.  

This conversation is tired.  It seems like my generation’s version of a hippy credo—in that it’s best said in a stoner accent while making deep, meaningful eye contact.

Which is why I’m so appreciative of Clay Shirkey’s Cognitive Surplus.  I now feel like I can convey my excitement about the space in a non-proseletizing, non-insider-baseball way.

For those of you who have not read it: do so.  The most interesting thought I took from the book was this:

There are three primary human endeavors with regard to expression: consuming, producing, and sharing.  Starting in 1940 with the advent of suburbanization and television, we became a society of consumers—our culture was dictated by those with the ability to “push the publish button”.  With the dramatic fall-off in production and sharing of expression, people became more disconnected from each other, and therefore more individualistic and zero-sum.  

With the advent of social media, people are relearning how to express themselves and to share their expressions with others.  They are discovering their own individual power and the joy of engaging in a collective to achieve something larger than themselves.  This is not only culturally significant because we get the direct byproducts (wikipedia, open source software, etc.)—it is significant because it represents a change in how we relate to the other people in our society.  Our relationships are now mutually beneficial, non-zero sum.

In Control of My Day

One of the hardest things that I’ve learned in the past year is that I am responsible for choosing how I spend my time. That sounds really obvious, but take a second and think about it.

People simply aren’t socialized to make their own time/priority decisions. Until age 6 my activities were determined by my mom. From 6-18 they were determined by the public education apparatus of Baltimore County. 18-22: class schedule, 22 to 27: boss. OK, true, there’s some degree of freedom involved and it increases over time, but there’s always a box there.

My role at Squarespace was such that I could take on basically whatever I wanted to do (assuming I could justify it), and as such the only real limitation was my own time and creativity. There really was no box.

At first, this freedom was almost paralyzing. I didn’t know how to take such a wide open playing field and purposefully break it down, prioritize it, and take actions. It took me a good four months to finally grok that no one was going to set my priorities for me and to feel empowered enough to begin doing what needed to be done.

This experience—operating with no box—was transformative for me personally. I’ve definitely discovered a new sense of purposefulness in my day-to-day existence. Things don’t happen to me, I choose them.

all the same

In 1919, Einstein’s theory of relativity was confirmed by two expeditions to Brazil and the West African coast to observe the total eclipse of the sun. The eminent British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington led the project. To the amazement of Eddington and the rest of the world, Einstein had correctly calculated that space could be distorted and light curved by gravity. Einstein was on the front page of newspapers worldwide. But when asked what he would have said had his theory not been proven correct by observation, Einstein replied, “I would have had to pity our dear Lord. The theory is correct all the same.

— Einstein’s God, Krista Tippett