I mean maybe there's some truth in what you're saying, but it's gotta be pretty stressful to live your life that way. You must feel paranoid about lots of stuff that other people don't concern themselves with.

yes, you are probably right and i have an exessive/overactive imagination that leads to some problems but i also belive it's not possible to take the phrase c.y.a as far as it can go because no one else is going to do it for you because everyone else is busy covering theris

a friend of mine in college made a comment about wanting to get tickets to a college event in the stands, and i quote "for a better vantage shot". his message was kind of cryptic since he's sarcastic and the guy was asking for better seats at the stadium...

2 weeks later, at his job, he got a phone call from his GF at home saying 2 FBI officers were on there way to his job. they pulled him into their SUV and told him that he can take the easy way or the hard way, he really had no idea WTF they were talking about. after 30 minutes of good cop/bad cop, he was let go after they realized he was harmless and told him not to show up at the stadium for that event.


there's a very simple rule to live by with regards to facebook and myspace:

once you're in trouble you'll wish u never posted what you posted (pics, text, etc) its much easier to avoid it than to become entrenched in it then suddenly have letters/people knocking on your door.

"What you don't hear about in Thiel's philosophy, by the way, are old-fashioned real-world concepts such as art, beauty, love, pleasure and truth."

people actually write things like this, and get paid for it.

if you're bothered by what people will see of you on myspace or facebook, use it less or dont use it.

i find it very useful for planning parties or, say, a football game to play over thanksgiving break. and i enjoy being able to keep up-to-date on the lives of friends whom im not in daily contact with. i dont put any information about me on there that isnt either 1) easily obtainable through other means and/or 2) innocuous.

also, thiel sounds like a baller.

while that story is horrifying as far as the extent to which our govt could be monitoring our lives, anecdotal evidence isnt a particularly compelling reason to alter behavior.

im perfectly fine with the level of risk i take on by using a social networking site. i drive in cars on a regular basis with the knowledge that i could be killed in an accident. it serves a function that i deem to be more valuable than the cost of a small risk of severe injury or death. re: facebook and my personal usage of it, i think the risk is comically small that:
a) something is posted on facebook by or about me that my govt or employer would dislike,
then b) have some group monitoring what i said decide to do something about it,
then c) i suffer actual consequences

"it could happen" and "the odds of it happening are significant enough for it to impact my decision making" are two different things.

I agree with you 100% except the part about not needing to get laid.

great point! all that matters is money!

maximum,

how good of an internet connection do you get on your commune?

ron,

you don't have to be a hippie or live on a commune to get alone fine without money

I kept waiting for the bad part and stopped reading after they finished with thiel. I know they were trying to make him look bad, but he came across as really awesome. Possibly one of the coolest guys ever.

The author tried to make Thiel come off as some money hungry monster, but all that stuff about his work in philosophy really didn't help that. It just showed he was a passionate intellectual with strong convictions. In other words someone who is not all about the money.

As has been said before, facebook offers an incredibly useful service to millions of people for free. They definitely deserve to make money for what they've done, and advertising/marketing is a way they make that money. Why do people take offense to the idea that their info may be used for marketing? Sure it makes them money, but it also may facilitate a purchase that you really enjoy. Would you rather see advertisements for crap you have absolutely no interest in?

And what do you care that someone unathorized can see your info. This is someone you'll never meet, and to them you wouldn't really matter anyway. Besides half the people on your friends list you don't even like, and you know them in real life.


On another note, an old acquaintance added me to facebook a week ago. They never said anything, and then when I messaged them they never responded. Does anyone else think this is really weird?

but dude, you realize that by pointing out their conspiracy the illuminati have now been alerted to your presence and they are going to put you on a CIA red list and put you in an interment camp and **** right? i mean behold a pale horse and **** dumbass, jeez

I'm gonna go send 50 comments to my friends about a plot to kill the president right now. You guys are a bunch of paranoid nutjobs

Woah an other post about an American scared of enjoying his fake freedom because of governmental anti-freedom departments

Also, getting laid ONCE per lifetime via Facebook makes it +EV to get black-bagged by the CIA imo.

wtf man?

Well I think Facebook is worth it because I can keep in contact with friends easily. For example there is this pretty hot girl I knew from high school and we didn't keep in touch much, the most was the occasional e-mail. But now we send messages and stuff

No, but it's a pretty ****ing sweet way to do it!

Anyway, facebook is great for planning parties and
hitting on college girls. And, I mean, I'm not too worried about who's prying into my profile, and my interests mostly revolve around drugs and ****ing. (Maybe I'm just an idiot.)

nath,

when i move back to the country, you are welcome to come live on my land for however long you want.

as long as you don't bring any indie music.

wtf am i supposed to dance to then?

WE MAKE OUR OWN MUSIC!

such a ridiculous amount of fail ITT so far...

I can't tell you how many friends I found on this site that I haven't seen in over 10 years. It's an incredibly useful and efficient way to communicate... for FREE. End of story... please try not to over-think this, guys!

Let the conspiracy theorists keep blabbering, but you shouldn't have any problems with the CIA if you don't put "How To Build a Bomb" in your favorite books section.

I would love to be facebook friends with Nath.

What an absolute load of nonsense. Although I was against the idea to begin with I gave up 12 months ago, fundamentally due to peer pressure in university and the many portals it opens to you, as a student..

But jesus, this guy has way too much time on his hands to write such an in depth discussion of bull**** and actually publish it.
You only have to ascertain the reason as to why people sign up to such sites to be able to establish what its all about, which subsequently ridicules any conspiracy theory. People sign up to communicate with ("connect") with 'old friends' or new ones in the form of employment possibilities etc. What they dont do, I would hope, is post all their details on there with a view to being 'hunted' by the multi-national corporations of the world. And if they did...its no different to everyday life, its just normally oblivious to you and not such a fast-growing phenomen.
As for all the crap surrounding Thiel; he's a multi-millionaire that can turn absolute dog ****e into a profitable business. Fair play to the man. The notion of him cohercing with the CIA and everything else to monitor the world. Yeh, nice one. Bigger problems in Iran if you ask me.

The guy merely cashed in on every gullable, internet obsessed, modern man of the world (myself included). Why spend money on a phone call when you can send an email? The internet I am sure is in 95% of households in developed countries.

So, Tom Hodgkinson, get off your high horse and enter reality, you tool.

how much money you have is irrelevant. what matters is how you value money and how you judge other people based on how much money they have.

you and most other anti-capitalist neohippies claim to not care about money, but seem to get mega tilted when you read about other people who have a lot of it. does not compute.

lol, he's a writer, so it's kind of his job.

this doesn't make any sense. i'm sure you can figure out why if you stop judging and start thinking.

wtf? "mega-tilted reading about other people who have a lot of it." how did you get to that point?

i have money. i am not against money. i don't value money highly at all. i am not against other people having money. i have no problem with someone making a lot of money off other people networking.

i have a problem with facebook claiming forever that that kid was the sole guy behind the show tricking people into thinking it was this super friendly hip happenin thing when really it was a government funded big brother program.

good for that theil (?) guy for being awesome making a ton out of nothing. bad for the us government having their fingers in my friendships and seemingly everything else i do.

also bad for everyone who falls and line and acts the same calling names and pointing fingers at people who don't.

i'm not a hippie. i would just like to know that i can function without having to worry about what the government is doing. i'm not going to turn this into a burlapesque matrix argument, but there are some people would rather question and fight rather than close their eyes and jump in head first.

maybe just the facebook thing isn't a HUUUGE deal and i'm not saying it is. i'm saying where does it end?