Expanding Identities

This a fabulous essay on the human identity and its interelationships.  The entire multimedia content can be found at The Global Oneness Project.

Social psychologists have shown that expanding our identities can reduce bias, prejudice and conflict. We do this through contact, cooperation, and personal exchanges.

Decategorization: When we free an individual from the group with which we had identified him. "He is not just ‘American’." he is an ‘intelligent and interesting human being’.

Recategorization: When we expand identities to include a larger group, such as: "We are all part of the human family."

Dual identity: When we maintain two overlapping identities concurrently: "I am of Puerto Rican descent, and I am also American."

You Can't Un-Ring a Bell

Its still amazing and very concerning, what people will post to the Internet and Social Media sites in particular.  There still seems to be a perception among many, that the only people that will see their words and images are those whom they want, to see their words and images.   The Internet is rapidly becoming the repository of human experience.  In some cases, such as with SecondLife, it is human experience, in a virtual reality for those who personify at least a part of themselves through an avatar.  The truth is that anything one posts to the Internet can be linked back to them and will be associated with them by others.  Depending on the circumstance, this may be interpretted very differently by different people.  Some of these circumstances may be unintentional as well.  Take for example the person who attends a party, they may have a little too much to drink or simply be in the "spirit of the moment" when their image is captured in a photo or video by a friend.  That friend in-turn posts the images to their Facebook page and tags the images with the names of those in the photo or video.  Whose property are these images now?  What right to, or expectation of, privacy has been violated here, any?  A day, a week, or months later, a recruiter or hiring manager is doing a background check on the person at issue.  They conduct the obligatory search of Facebook and see the photos tagged with the person's name.  This may or may not require them to be "friended".  Recruiters will frequently send out friend requests to access this information.  The recruiter may well discard someone as a job candidate, based on questionable posts.  This has now happened so often that it has a name.  Being Facebook fired.  The same or similar scenarios play out for everyone and the impacts on one's personal and professional life should not be taken lightly.  Kids need to understand this issue and take extra precautions to prevent a serious obstacle to an already difficult career launch.  Companies need to be mindful of both the new risks to brand and reputation, posed by social network and media content as well as the importance of discretion with employee privacy.   This complicated issue is playing out in many ways and providing new dilemmas for leadership and the legal communicty to resolve.  So far each path is a double-edge sword of protecting reputation and controlling communication on one side and benefiting from the advantages of social networking and internet media on the other.

Technology and Collective Conciousness

Increasingly we worry about the impact of technology on humanity.  Whether its increasing dependence on devices to calculate the tip on the dinner bill or remember Mom's birthday, we have a tendency to focus on the negative.  "Technology is making us all stupid".  Well there is another viewpoint that both explains the former and supports the continued integration of technology in our day to day lives.  The average 8th grader today knows more than any adult 100 years ago.  By the time we are adults and engaged in our chosen profession, we are routinely accessing an exponentially greater volume of information than previous generations, and this curve continues to steepen.  It not possible to know all that we may need to at any given time, let alone what we might want to know.  Therefore we rely on the collective human knowledge, increasingly at our fingertips.  How many time do we sit in normal conversations with friends or co-workers, where topics come and go?  Who was President before Lyndon Johnson?  How many games did the Colts win last year? (too many).  Usually someone whips out their iPhone or Blackberry and the answer comes.  True, this saves those sleepless nights of searching for that answer that is just below the surface, but somehow unreachable.  But it also allows us to free-up memory space for other things that we need to recall more frequently.  The humain brain is evolving, but maybe not fast enough for the volume of data we use.  A bigger concern for me is how technology draws us away from the natural world and into the digital one.  Finding a way to ensure we all "unplug"often enough and reamain focused on preserving our planet is still critical, even as technology helps with that mission.  Seeing the movie Avatar started me thinking about bionets and where humans as well as plants and animals might share collective knowledge or awareness.  Maybe to some degree this already exists or even did to a greater extent among humans in the past, when we were much closer to the earth and tuned-in to our natural environment first and foremost for our own survival.  Perhaps whales and dolphins are ahead of us with this.  They have both a physically larger brain and one with a higher percentage of activity.  If so, maybe they have been smart not to share that with us yet.  But on the other hand, our very existance as a species may rely on our gaining the ability to SEE and KNOW our interdependence with all life on this planet and have the ability emotionally, biologically and technically to make sacrifices in the name of coexistance.

Lies, Damn Lies, Microsoft and the NSA

Recently the NSA released that it had collaborated with Microsoft during the creation of Windows 7. "Working in partnership with Microsoft and elements of the Department of Defense, NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide without constraining the user to perform their everyday tasks, whether those tasks are being performed in the public or private sector," Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security.   This has started anew the perennial conspiracy theory that the NSA is somehow installing “backdoors” in the Windows operating system.  This notion is absurd, but let’s walk through the thinking to clarify it once more.  First of all the NSA has participated with Microsoft and others on computing and operating systems for 20 years.  Despite your opinions of the agency and what they do, they are still a preeminent pool of computer scientists and thought leaders.  A logical source of intellect to participates widely in the world of computing and technology.  The NSA has had more than its share of nasty press and soul-crushing congressional hearings related to inappropriate and illegal activity in the name of national security.  Microsoft is seeing a rapid decline in its market standing and value.  Neither of these organizations is likely to risk the damaging repercussions resulting from the exposure of an illegal “tap” in the operating system of 80% of the world’s computers.  Next, this unholy alliance, as some view it, has not created any stellar examples of secure operating systems.  This leaves a number of questions as to who doesn’t listen or play well with others.  The fact is that for all of its closed source, proprietary code, the Windows operating systems have routinely been cracked, by a kid with a five year old laptop.  So who needs a “backdoor”?  The NSA receives a third of the US Defense Department Budget.  Conservatively, that’s over $200 Billion, and it’s certainly not their only source for appropriating technology solutions.  The capabilities of the NSA to acquire, process, index, store and retrieve data is beyond comprehension, even for many of those in the field of information technology.  The NSA has assembled the worlds largest highly customized, massively parallel supercomputing environment from Cray along with systems to process massive inbound IP data flows in real time, such as the Narus traffic intelligence systems.  The capabilities afforded by such technology include the ability to break encryption and brute-force strong password strings in seconds or less.  With billions of dollars on hand, leading technical minds and release from the normal boundaries of cost vs. benefit requirements, the NSA is able to create enormously powerful, bleeding edge technology systems for highly specialized uses.  So with this in mind, installing a “backdoor” in Windows, seems a little like Google finding a way to hack pre-paid parking meters. 

Netizen Community and Support In Haiti

With their telecom infrastructure in ruin, social networking and web communities are serving as communication hubs for the Haitian people and relief effforts.  Twitter and Facebook are both providing real time communication for people trying to find friends and relatives and for aid workers and other interested parties to share information.  Google is serving as both a prime video content source and provider of satellite imagery via Google Earth.  Their Youtube site is driving traffic directly to Oxfam and the American Red Cross.  Google has pledged $1 million to aid organizations on the ground for rescue and food and water distribution.  Microsoft has also donated $1.25 million in cash and technology.  Microsoft has also deployed their internal disaster response team to support efforts of humanitarian relief organizations. Many companies including Verizon and Liberty Mutual Insurance have announced large financial contributions and are matching the additional contributions of their employees.

Below is a list of reputable organizations actively involved in rescue and support efforts.

International Committee of the Red Cross – http://www.icrc.org/eng

American Red Cross – http://www.redcross.org/ or text the word HAITI to 90999 for a $10 donation*

Action Against Hunger- http://actionagainsthunger.org

ActionAid – http://actionaidusa.org

Air Serve International – http://www.airserv.org

Airline Ambassadors – http://www.airlineamb.org

AmeriCares – http:// www.AmeriCares.org

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals- http://www.aspca.org

CARE – http://www.care.org/donatehaiti

Clinton Foundation – http:// www.clintonfoundation.org or text the word HAITI to 20222 for a $10 donation*

Doctors Without Borders – http:// doctorswithoutborders.org

Habitat for Humanity – http:// www.habitat.org

Humane Society International – http:// www.hsi.org

Mercy Corps: Haiti Earthquake Fund – http:// www.mercycorps.org

Oxfam America – http:// OxfamAmerica.org/Haiti

Partners in Health – http:// www.pih.org

Save the Children – http://savethechildren.org

The Salvation Army – http:// salvationarmyusa.org

UN World Food Programme – http:// www.wfp.org

UNICEF – http:// www.unicefusa.org/haitiquake

United Way International – http:// www.liveunited.org