PABCAS, the blog of Paul Martin Campbell

So I went along to the ‘Halo 3 event this evening and met neither Mullley nor MacGyver ...

I did however feel an enormous sense of community. Something about the conversations I had tonight with Fergal and Clare stirred something in me – made me feel even stronger that sense of undercurrent that I feel has been bubbling away for the past year or so round here.

With Fergal, the conversation was more about networking – kind of following on from my own asshole post ( I got to personally apologise about that tonight, which was a weight off ) ... that it’s important to treat each other with respect and that it pays dividends.

Conversing with Clare ( and Pascal and Conor ) we discussed the power of social networking and followed on from discussions we’d had previously about privacy and transparency online.

Basically, at OpenCoffee a couple weeks ago, I argued with Clare that there are dangerous levels of paranoia out there and that one should be responsible about what one shares online – I made a promise to myself this year that I’d only blog about those things that I wholeheartedly wanted in the public domain – I decided that private thoughts would go in a private journal, personal things on Facebook, and public things here.

Clare’s argument was that younger people are potentially sharing too much on Facebook.

From my idealistic, Star Trek idealistic point of view, I find it very sad that privacy should be an issue at all – I believe that transparency is such an important attribute in all relationships – private, personal and business—that said, there are people out there whom the term “screwing over” means nothing and will readily do just that as part of due course.

Conor raise the point this evening reflecting back on a conversation we’d had that I argued that I’d no inherent problem with being finger printed going through US customs. Perhaps I was a bit biased as I love America and would probably jump through even more hoops to get myself in. I argued though then that I have nothing to hide and if they want to finger print me and keep my US activities on file then so be it – everything I do is legitimate and I’m a citizen who actively encourages both a) respect for the law and b) diplomatic influencing of laws that may be out of date or irrelevant – and I’ve given that a lot of thought.

At the end of the day, privacy online is down to the individual. I had an argument a while ago that there should such thing as a generalisation in moral issues as every case should be taken individually. That said, I think it should be generalised that net citizens – everyone who partakes in distribution of themselves and their personalities online should take responsibility for their actions online as much as they do offline. Therein lies a whole other argument that could branch and stretch far and wide after I’ve gone to sleep.

But it’s food for thought nonetheless. An open source world is a wonderful ideal, but for now, an ideal it remains.