Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Yves gets paranoid
And don't kid yourself that they aren't watching. Your humble blogger got an e-mail from the Department of State inviting me to participate in a webcast (on the economics of Colombia, of all things). The fact that the Department of State (and who knows who else) is monitoring bloggers is scary (I suppose I had naively hoped there were so many that we were all part of a crowd).
I suspect the origins of the invitation were something like this:
State Dept. Desk Officer: I need some non-State, non-banker panelists for the Colombia Symposium
Junior Flunky: I'll get right on it! (surfs internet)..how about this guy?
"Monitoring" and simply noticing on the web are two very different things.
I find the ideas related in the Financial Times article unamazing. Who doesn't look back on a time in their life when, between jobs or schools, they might have travelled without an itinerary or spent a languid summer sponging off of a relative, or vounteered for a cause? Not *having* to do something and not having your identity wrapped up in a bureaucracy or tight social unit are tremendous sources of happiness.
So if the world is becoming happier, what are the implications? First, that the expansion of political and social freedoms over the past quarter of a century is vindicated...
Second, the results may engender caution towards attempts to engineer happiness through public policy. The happy countries include social democracies such as Sweden and Denmark, and more laisser faire [sic] economies such as Australia and the US. What they have in common are not their policies but institutions: democracy, rule of law and social tolerance. People are largely capable of engineering their own happiness when given the means to do so.
Third, the link from free choice to rising happiness suggests that the appropriate benchmark of development is not income per capita, but individual freedoms and capabilities. This is the human development perspective associated with Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate. While income and well-being are closely correlated at early stages of development, once the threat of starvation recedes, social and political freedom appears to be as important.
Wholeheartedly agreed. Yet I don't think cameras and security screening count as major happiness obstacles, frankly. More of a passing annoyance. I understand that the powers and information given the State by these techniques can be used badly, and the State, perhaps, should not be trusted with it, as it increases the hazards of authority. But I still separate the freedom to act as I wish and go where I wish from the freedom to do so unobserved. I gladly volunteer some privacy to the needs of law enforcement. This is a balance any (small-l) libertarian needs to think about.
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Aug 19, 03:37:00 PM:
Let's do some more technical analysis on the original State Department message. Sure, they may be following Yves' every keystroke, every step, every human interaction. Or, it may be a coincidence. I get 3 to 5 phishing notices a day, some from governmental agencies and some from companies with whom I actually do business.
If Mr. Smith is concerned about a connection with Colombia, I suggest that he Google "Yves Smith" and "Colombia." I'll bet he finds some hits. Of course, maybe they are after him.
By 
Roy Lofquist, at
Tue Aug 19, 03:52:00 PM:
Is it not a plausible alternative theory that the State Department is also growing distrustful of the MSM and thus seeking a broader perspective?
By jon spencer, at
Tue Aug 19, 06:31:00 PM:
A google alert with key words will let anyone know by email that there is something to check out.
I have several alerts set up, the trick is setting up the proper key words so that you only get what you want.
So a fellow (to me) .gov droid sitting at a Columbia desk gets a alert and reads the post, and kicks it up the chain.
By , at
Tue Aug 19, 09:25:00 PM:
Imagine how he would react to the eagle in the previous post
