On Wikileaks

its interesting, right - that most of the information was public, but because it doesn't support the dominant narrative, it is considered threatening on a more technical basis - against protocol.

of course, any information that puts lives in danger should be treated differently, be protected. And its good to hear it reinforced, even in this murky debate - that human life is paramount.

But it seems like the administration is trying to have its cake and eat it too: saying its a massive breach with serious consequences, while at the same time saying the value of the information itself is low since it is in the public domain. So, to me, then, the breach is more about interpretation, emphasis and the use of narrative in political interaction than it is about actual data availability. A political breach, essentially. And that political breach is not illegal, but because it is so potentially harmful to our agenda, it is being interpreted as a protocol breach that is illegal and if it endangers lives, is also unethical. I doubt there would be much steam for prosecuting a protocol breach that for example revealed the dastardliness of the Iranian regime.

However, it speaks to the disconnect between big institutions and the actual behavior of increasingly greater numbers of people who have individual access. Big institutions, the fulcrums of our world, assume a high degree of control over information access. Individuals, regardless of nation state, institution, etc., also assume a high degree of control over information access.

other interesting effects seem to be: something like the Rorschach test effect for data - the more there is the more variance in interpretation; and, the observer effect, again, which is the effect the information has when it is observed by a third party vs. when it is delivered point to point.

but the whole thing doesn't bode well for our great institutions.

Cloudthink Part II

After re-reading Ethan Zuckerman's post on slacktivism, it was worthy to re-think the problem of conflating mass action with collective organization. He makes some very good points about clearly seeing a lot of social/political use of technology for what it is: not changemaking, just affiliation.

I found a model that describes several steps a group goes through as it becomes engaged , self-aware or participatory. It is Sherry Arnstein's "Ladder of Citizen Participation." It seems a bit more exact in describing the gaps between "a lot of people doing the same thing" (e.g. twittering about Tehrani clashes between the basiji and green-wearing youngsters) and organized self-empowered changemaking groups (especially grassroots movements). My old gripe about the gaps seems just a tad simplistic itself. (see Cloudthink post).

So the argument now might go more like this: If we hope to turn the dispersed actions of many into actual big meta change, it might be worthy to look at models that describe the transition from accidental action or even apathy into revolution. Lets not get too geeky here, but it has got to be better than just trial and error. Isn't that the lesson of all of these schools of government and leadership? That there are actually some methods that produce better results than the gestalt expressing the gestalt?