We are not the Enlightened ones.

Today I realized I have been guilty on many occasions of puffery. For a long time now, I believed that my generation was "the one" who could solve todays issues. I thought this was rational, because we seem to be the first generation of human beings born into a digitally interfaced environment. It seemed logical, and lots of people agreed.

We are the first to begin to use adaptive media, and the concept of "sharing" something essentially limitless in number. We have succumbed entirely to the notion of documenting everything and sharing it willy nilly. We have adapted quickly to the merits of crowd-sourcing, and volunteerism too. And yes, we are the first to tune in to twitter when we want news from any situation in the first person, and it's nice to stay connected with old friend through shared media. But we made the mistake of assuming that all this sharing means everyone always wants to see what matters to us, from our point of view, all the time. Sometimes, for an authors words words to have content, they have to speak to what's important to the audience, from your point of view. To discern and sympathize with your intended audience takes foresight, creativity, and conscious effort, and so of course, aimless ego flourishes instead.

We're also the first generation in a long time to be this thoroughly qualified, while facing such low guarantee of work that reflects our skill. There is no promise in the job market, and traditional middle management jobs and accounting positions are some of the most likely to be compromised as management, work and production become increasingly automated. To add to the perfect storm, we've been shackled with debt for our degrees, and are facing no genuine prospects of a career or stability: the fundamental benefits promised to us by "a degree". That means that the bulk of business majors, and many other fields as well, will have to embrace an entrepreneurial spirit, or face a low salary performing undervalued work.

So we are "special" in a sense. We are under special circumstance, as evidenced by the inverse levels of employment, debt, education, and technological advance.

I think in a mix of indulgence and distraction, social media has become a sort of maelstrom of content with no intended audience. It could be due in part to being so desperate to prove that we're as special we were told we were and that everyone should care about us. And it will hurt, as we try to find our place in society where work is scarce, and yet we feel educated and competent. By our parents standards, we are moving slower, despite what our "fast lifestyle" presents. We are getting finding steady jobs, married, buying homes, and having children much later in life. All of these foundational aspects of life "as it has always been" have been removed from us, and financial independence has not quite come for many many young individuals. Debt however, comes too easily, as educations are in high demand and seem like a valid, and necessary investment. They cost us all quite a bit, for this very reason. But now they are high in supply too, so they haven't grabbed the same compensation they once did in the job market, which is already flustering, and cluttered with older workers trying to recover their retirement funds and mortgages after the wool was pulled over their eyes leading up to 2008. What this means is that we are sitting in the crosshairs of a lot of economic tension, with good kids often being sold terrible educations void of and critical thought or value for exorbitant rates, paid for in thousands and thousands of dollars in debt.

I think that as capitalism runs its course, and the entire globe becomes familiar with its face, we might be delivered, or spat out, rather, to the point where we can support and educate ourselves on the human necessities, without the notion of having to prove your worth to "those more qualified". If we treated life a little bit more like the game Monopoly like many capitalists would say they do, I think we'd see drastic improvement.  Once everyone has guaranteed income from the start, and when passing "Go", or 1 year, and once we all take part in overseeing the bankers moves, then we can finally all play.

But as a whole, we are far too indulgent and distracted by social media and the entrapment of the internet for this idea of total unconditional support to work. As a generation, we have to collectively decide on how much is enough, because if we don't, we will be supporting each others reckless consumption at the encouragement of those in positions of authority. I don't know if we ever will reach a consensus ourselves, but maybe our foolish behavior and its meticulously and narcissistically hash-tagged documentation will reveal to our children one day how silly it really all is.

In short, we are enlightened in our mechanical ability to throw web, but not in our ability to aim it.

Maybe our children will reject our aimless and noisy lifestyles like we rejected out own parents' fads. But then again, maybe they'll ironically embrace and reinterpret them, again just like we did. Either way, I just hope that our children will learn to appreciate the value of introspection, so that they can find out who their true intended audience really is, and what they really need.

We tend to think that we are the Sol Actor, the center of the universe, and that the world is the audience. But the truth is, from the first person point of view, we have a play with 7 Billion actors. We all need a role, we all have a role, and when all of us are starts, just like Sol, none of us are Stars. We all have our place and purpose, but rarely is it ever in the center. The target is always moving, and so when we have something to say, it stands to reason that we should at least have a target, or someone in mind that we are saying it to.

We have become too overwhelmed and distracted by the capabilities of our new tools to truly consider ourselves the enlightened generation. It's consumed us in many ways. A freshman down the hall just yelled "Hashtag Ithaca, hashtag Ithaca!" as I type this.  But I do believe our children will be the ones who refine these tools and take these habits and channel them into more refined hobbies and tastes. In this case, I'm sure whatever they come up with will have amazing implications for information distribution and organization. It's up to us to foster the creative, thoughtful, and generation ahead of us, and do what we can to prevent debt from ensnaring them like it has so many of our own peers.

A Possible Solution to the Problem of Our Shrinking Creative Commons

One thing that has been bothering quite a few members academia, is the well documented shrinking of our public domain of intellectual "property". 

What was once considered sharing and cooperative distribution is now considered to be theft. Of course, most individuals accustomed to modern day life and the nature of the Internet aren't too enthused with the current interpretation of Intellecutal Property. There's an interesting introduction to the idea here which isn't too long.

The Creative Commons movement was spurred out of this displeasure, and has gone to great lengths to encourage benevolent sharing. Wikipedia is one facet of CC, and fine example too. Even without financial compensation for contributors, the information is largely correct, and well cited. There are also numerous musicians and film makers who have also released their creative works into the "wild" of the Creative Commons, and gone on to earn critical acclaim as independent artists. 

However, Creative Commons does have its down falls. Some argue that "lack of rewards for content producers will dissuade artists from publishing their work", and of all the great things the Creative Commons does offer, this is once criticism I can completely understand. Perhaps it is the the key aspect that is holding us within the current legal framework regarding IP rights.

As of now, there is no embedded mechanism that allows for artists to be compensated, and there is no intrinsic reputation management system, and this is perhaps the only real reason we haven't universally adopted a system of creative commons. The money simply isn't there, yet. No one makes money off of sharing content for free, and for now, we're expected to believe that only through the explicit sale, or  more appropriately termed as lease, of explicitly owned intellectual property can our ever important producers and (more often than not) the distributors get their cut.

Now, believe it or not, I think the answer to these concerns of compensation can be tackled holistically and from the ground up. 

If a filter system was incorporated into the publishing and releasing of Creative Commons works,  we could greatly increase the efficiency and incentives for the creative talent, producers, and even distributors of content. 

These concerns were the founding thoughts of a company I frameworked with my long time friend, Nate Lottis. We call it A True Point. 

The concept for this filter is relatively simple: We would allow users to publish all of their content into the Creative Commons as they see fit. We would allow them to apply tags of their choice, so as to index their content and establish terms they would like to earn a reputation from. Each tag would be an interactive node. Think of it as a poll booth, as well as a donation box. Users can all gather to vote on the tag, after searching or viewing it. If its true, or relevant, it can be confirmed as such, which will increase the ranking, reputation, and verity of the content, as well as the user who created the tag itself, in an entirely quantifiable manner. 

If an avid fan or supporter decides she would like to donate a certain cash amount to the artist/producer/tag and content creator, then she could choose to pay when confirming the tag. This not only sends ~100% of the donation to the intended recipient, but will reward the donor with reputation alongside the producer for funding the content. This way, the fans who support their favorite contributors the most have the most opportunities to invest and earn reputation and recognition alongside their benefactors. 

We think that these two simple features could alter the way we think about information, sharing, and rights to compensation. If successful, it might just finally nullify the last valid arguments against universally implementing Creative Commons.

"Crowd funding" the actual indexing of public content, while honoring those who put in the most effort is a great way to go. It would allow individuals to share and interact fluidly by imbedding an explicitly marketable aspect to contributions we make every day online. As a nice side effect, it would also eradicate the need for invasive advertising-as-revenue models and could dramatically de-clutter the web.

Every 'like', hashtag, upvote, and retweet is worth it's weight in gold to market researchers, and advertisers.  It's time we realign our interests with the greater good and allow the people who do the best work at indexing and distributing to earn the most profit from sharing with the people. 

It's common knowledge that buskers often make hundreds of dollars a day. This is because it simply feels good to put your penny where you think it counts. Not only that, but Apple, EMI, and Universal aren't in the violin case waiting for a cut. These artists would stand the most to gain from sharing their content under such a system, but really, it extends to anyone with information that they think they can make relevant. 

A movement along the lines of what I've described could be what it takes to eradicate the notion that information must be "owned" to be beneficial to the creators, and lift us out of IP Feudalism.

Remember: In a sense, it's only illegal to share copyrighted information right now because we're doing the distributors job for free and disrupting an established monopoly. Bringing down monopolistic ventures has always been a formidable task, but if we simply make the monopoly irrelevant, we don't have to put up much of a fight in the first place.

By simply establishing a way for producers and consumers to establish peer-to-peer connects for distributing data, donations, and reputation, we eradicate the need to "own" data and rely on traditional distribution channels. Nate and I firmly believe that reputation as a parallel form of compensation is the key ingredient to A True Point, and indeed the two are literally one and the same.

A-R
T-E
R-P
U-U

E-T

P-A

O-T

I  -I

N-O

T-N

Liberty is Rising Truth in Media Project

I've got an inspiring quote for you re-tweeters and chain-email fanatics out there. When speaking on the largest single day presidential campaign donation drive, Ron Paul said in an interview with Ben Swann that "it was spontaneous, it was people who agreed with the message and spontaneously shared information through the internet."

Some of you might not be aware of Ben's record of investigative Journalism, but he has even interviewed President Obama, and you can check that out here, or just straight up watch his new Kickstarter campaign video right now:

Ron Paul hit the nail on the head with that quote, and it obviously resonated with Mr. Swann too. Now he's hoping the internet will mobilize once again for yet another cause that traditional channels seem to glance over or ignore. His Liberty is Rising Truth in Media Project sure looks like the real deal: It stands on his reputation for fearless journalism, it comes a flashy video, lofty goals, and a $1.25 Million asking price.

In no way are any of these bad things: They've displayed the production standards they hold themselves too quite nicely. Lofty goals are indicitave of minds who haven't given up on the possibility to disrupt the status quo. $1.25 Million is small change when it comes to securing a reputable channel of free press. It might sound cliché but you know what they say: Freedom ain't...

So take a look, and see what you think.

While you're there, you can also kindly let him know that we aren't actually positive that the quote he poses with and attributes to George Orwell is 'Orwellian' at all!

No matter. Everyone makes mistakes, but journalism is a process, and hopefully he's willing to edit and revise his work! Of course, I still support him in his efforts, but further diligence and vigilance will only make him a sharper ally. And after all, fair is fair. Credit goes to redditor u/mcantelon for spotting it in the first place.

Here's to journalism that WE can participate in.

@shawndavisATP

A Brief Conversation on the Nature of Our Information

What is our information worth?

With all the news lately regarding the NSA, we once again have to ask ourselves: What is our information worth? Obviously, it is worth quite a lot if our government is willing to spend billions of dollars collecting it. Previously, we've asked ourselves the same questions when Instagram altered their EULA, stating they claim the rights to market all images shared on the site. Coincidentally, this has been Facebook's policy the whole time essentially, but when the company began its ever encroaching push for targeted ad revenue, we realized that our data is more profitable to these companies than what ever dollar amount they think we'd be willing to pay to use their service. As Facebook ramps up to incorporate tagging, to further complete our marketing profiles, many of us will no doubt ask the question again: how much is this information worth? And perhaps it's more important to ask what it's worth, because there are two driving motives for these large data mining entities: profit, and power.

States will use the information to detect, smother, scatter, scramble, or otherwise disrupt any unpleasant or unfavorable behaviors. The state does not care to make profit outright off the data, because those behind the programs know that with enough information on any given individual, they can control all the outcomes. For now it's shielded under terms of "counter-terrorism" and "national security", but many of us are starting to think otherwise.

Corporations, especially those we are most giving with our information online, often feel as if the public at large is not willing to pay for the services they provide. To be sure, this is true, but we have shot ourselves in the foot in accepting their best alternative. Now, we face obtrusive ads that ultimately ruin the utility of the web services we have come accustomed to by cluttering the interface, distracting from content, or downright playing to our habits, vices, and interests with uncanny accuracy. Not only this but our deeply private emails passwords and sensitive information is within the confines of server that owes no notion of privacy or security to the customer. As we know, we face these negative side effects of the current system because we have given up the rights to our production for the right to consumption and free rent.

If our data and information truly is worth something, then by rights, we can consider producing it to be work. Work that should be compensated like any other. If we exchange this work for the rights to use the service, we are simply agreeing to a simplified form of feudalism, in which we are the serfs, the data we produce is the grain, and the services and facilitators we are beholden to act as the land owning noble class, able to coordinate, transport, and package our individually meager contributions into billions of dollars annually. It is their ability to aggregate and apply information on a macro-level that makes this information so valuable, and it is only our belief that we couldn't apply it as well ourselves that keeps us within the confines of the current status-quo.

Eventually though, the peasants revolted, and some time later, we thought to apply the ideals that men should be entitled to life (or land), liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Without rights to the information we contribute and control over the information we choose not to contribute, how can these ideals still ring true for us today?

Why and how can it be worth so much?

We also have to ask ourselves why and how our information is worth so much to these super-entities. Again, it's partially their enormous stature and macro-scale application of the information that makes it so valuable to them, but its also our perceived lack of infrastructure and ability to market and manage it ourselves, that makes relatively easy to convince an internet hungry populace to give it up.

To be clear: Its not the data itself that's important, it's the data about the data. It might not make much sense right now, but this is the meta-data that the NSA claims to be solely interested in. In fact, it might be the one true thing they've said.

That photo you took of your cat on thursday wearing skinny jeans and sipping Starbucks with your iPhone is in no way relevant to the bigger scheme of things in the immediate sense. It's not an amazing picture, and your filter makes you no artist. But what is important is the metadata. What makes it important is that it's about a cat, that its about skinny jeans, that its about Starbucks, that you used your iPhone.

It is important to remember that all tags are considered metadata, and the NSA has no qualms in picking this up and using it to their advantage. The same goes for marketing directors and analysts the world over.

All that these groups need to achieve their desired profit is your description of the content. They simply need to know how many times #cat #skinnyjeans #starbucks #iphone is thrown into the mix. Marketers want access to this data to make sure they're using relevant terms to convey their products, and so they convey relevant products to interested parties. Facebook can give them both, at a price, all thanks to the information you work to produce.

States want access to this data to locate information and citizens participating in or assisting undesirable behavior. Tags are great! They makes it easier to connect people to data, data with people, and people to eachother. But in the wrong hands, it can easily be manipulated and misconstrued.

What rights should we claim to our data? We now see how clumsily all these institutions with any level of macro-control or oversight are grappling for control over it, and its time we kill the music and think long and hard over who has the rights to our information.

If we claim first rights to benefit economically from our own work contributing data, and prohibit corporations from selling our data and metadata, or even market-profiles comprised on our metadata to third parties, we can solve one aspect of the conundrum. Web services could no longer harvest and market our labor, we could maintain the rights to distribute and profit from our own creations, and share them freely with each other as we see fit.

It still doesn't allow us any security against the state, which as we know, thinks it can help itself to our meta-data at any moment. Currently, the Restore the Fourth movement is tackling this aspect of the issue, and we can all be a part of the solution. Remember that the Fourth Amendment refers to:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

We are not breaking any new ground in asking for privacy when it comes to the works we record. We are simply recognizing that "papers and effects" of 1776  cover "digital papers and effects" of 2013.

Check out Restore the Fourth to see how you can be apart of the first steps towards taking back the right to what is ours. Because to answer the question, our information is worth much more than the bottom line and the profit margin. That is all secondary. Our information IS our freedom. Without it, we have none. And when they own it, they have it. 

@shawndavisATP