Withdraw

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve really made an effort to really withdraw from social media.  There are many reasons for this.

1.  Google and Facebook.  I was utterly disgusted listening to the Senate testimony a few weeks ago.  The company who used to have the principle of “don’t be evil,” is now okay doing things with repressive governments.  I also noticed that GMail, and Facebook were suggesting friends I’d never even considered connecting with apart from private emails on 757.org.  So, the bits of doubt were planted early.  The testimony, the actions of perhaps less-than-honest mining, and politicans who purportedly represent me, I decided to really curtail things.  Well, that combined with;
   
2. Politics.  I am at odds with the strains of jubilation from people who view me as a heretic, as well as the even older people who trot out other stupid stuff.  I don’t care.  Really.  Everybody thinks I’m evil because… Again, I don’t care.  I am who I am.  I explore ideas that are contrary to my conclusions.  But I shouldn’t be able to do that.  That I might access things not approved by the commissars is a problem.  I’m free to leave. Well, for now.  The strike-through is intentional;  I can leave, and there’s nothing that can stop me.  This is a problem for both businesses and governments.  Sorry.  The Internet, and the math that underlies it, are things that business and government can’t surpress without resorting to the ultimate weapon of government — force.  Fine.  Whatever. 
3. When I chose to withdraw from FB, I jettisoned also G+, and LinkedIn.  G+, of course, had a similar data breech to FB.  I was tempted to say, “purportedly it’s shut down,” but i looked around, and it’s still up.  For now. I’ve complained about LinkedIn before, but it seems to be nothing but recruiters these days.  (Aside:  the legion of corporate recruiters is likely attributable to the major increase of folks graduating with Arts degrees.  Spell too well to work as a Barista?  Don’t worry.  You can work in tech staffing!!1!)
   
4. Google’s decision to push all traffic in Chrome to SSL is a really bad idea.  Hey, it’s sekur, so nobody can look at it.  Except, of course, the totes didn’t use to be evil company, and the NSA.  You’ve also killed off all the sorts of things developed to make Intertubing faster since the web came into being.  I really don’t care that my people can see what banner ads I’m seeing, and those might be cached somewhere else.

I’m preparing to write again in November.  The summer writing went well this year, but I didn’t feel the need to do it.  There’s periods at work when I’m very busy these days, and don’t have the urge to write to kill time.  But I do miss writing.  As the year ends, I might have more to say.ca