My day has been spent on a bit of work & a LOT of reading, mostly on blogging and privacy as the little firestorm around Weigel's departure from the Post wraps up.
I suppose it's worth clarifying the intent of this blog. This is my journal. It's a place for me to record thoughts and feelings on the public issues of the day. My private and personal tales and trials are written and spoken about in places where the Google don't shine, and no one should expect this blog to be anything like a complete representation of myself. It's also not marketed or linked to - while I am pleasantly surprised that anyone would fine my posts worth reading, you lovely people aren't so much my concern.
With that out of the way, today's topic is on the ease-of-access of data, and its negative effects. Centralization is efficient - it's easier to have a central database for everyone to analyze, instead of two people gather data in competition, and online articles and journals make the life of a researcher, academic, or P.I. much easier. In fact, I'd bet that the old skills of research are now much harder to market, which is unfortunate.
But my main concern is "separability." We know about internet memes - trends that takeover various tech//geek blogs like Keyboard Cat or Rickrolling, but I worry about an undercurrent of conventional wisdom that may lead to lazy thinking. Not because we don't consider issues without care, or because our thoughts aren't logistical, but instead because we're all jumping off of the same boat into the water.
The Rolling Stone article, for example, is a single article constructed by a single man, completely unrepresentative of the banter that the press usually keeps private. Now, though, we all must assume, on the basis of a lack of data, that similar issues exist elsewhere. Similar issues that risk insubordination.
Eeep.
So now I realize that I'm making a case often made elsewhere - we need more reporting and less commentating. That's what I tried to do when reporting on the Bernard Moore case earlier this year, but I'm frankly much more interested in what is done than in talking about it or reporting about it. I'm not a reporter, and anyone who survives this blog can see I'm not a great first-draft writer. So this blog is, in a sense, irrelevant. Possibly, it only exists so that I can justify writing these thoughts to laugh at years later; I can at least feel that I have some sort of contribution to the public sphere.
