Rant

I doubt anyone checks my blog anymore. If you do. Thanks.

This pic is from post-race on Friday. Spare you the details but we had a lot of fun and won our class,

When I started this blog way back when it was the cool thing to do. I tried it, I liked it, and it made a big difference for me personally. I posted and the people I cared about viewed it. In those early days many blogs were like diaries. Yes Facebook was already exploding but it was not as personal. Now Facebook has been monetized (which means that I do not see what I expect when I log on) so I am done with that.

Today social media is much more immediate. This is not new news for anyone. Twitter is almost passe. No one provider of social media will ever prevail from now on. As soon as one dominates the tax or political authorities will stamp it down.

This is what is interesting for me about Russia. Having spent time in China and dealing with the Great Firewall of China, I know what to expect and what access they allow. I know the rules. I do not like the rules, but I know them, It is my business.

The Arab Spring? No one can deny that is was catalyzed by the open exchange of information. As I write this my biggest impression of the Israel/Gaza confrontation is that it was fought on the Internet as much as on the ground. Both sides use international tools like Twitter but they also use other, more closed, social media outlets.

In Syria and Iraq, the goons that are trying to monetize the Crescent in the name of Islam seem to be very aware of the power of social media. They represent attitudes from centuries ago but are using the business acumen of the West and tools of technology. Not sure how they reconcile that, or even if they bother to try.

I did spend some time in the Middle East and almost everyone I met was very gracious and generous. I am grateful for my experience. So I am not sure where this savagery comes from.

Here are the things I do not understand:

China is portrayed as the country that does not allow their people access to information. Yet I can say from personal experience that, although their education system is tainted, and the media filters, they are aware of what is going on in the world (probably more than most Americans). I do prefer the US approach that all info is available. Internet neutrality.

The Arab world is on the forefront of social media. So it seems odd that the literalists are so effective with technology and communication even though they are centuries behind in terms of social issues. This is a contradiction that cannot be a positive for them in the long run.

The most alarming to me is Russia. Russia has been the source of many of the most sophisticated software tools invented lately – including some that I use – and it is also the source of some of the best internet scam-artists. So how is it possible that they have suddenly emerged as the most ignorant place in the world? Putin has a 80% approval rating? He controls the media? As we learned from Berlusconi, TV is still more powerful than the Internet but it is hard to understand that in the Year 2014, most Russians still get their information from state media. Does this mean that access to the Internet is controlled better by Moscow than Beijing? That is not what I would have guessed.