Time Magazine, Zuckerberg and Assange.

Time Magazine has just engaged in a strange snub of its readers. It had invited readers from all over the world, to vote on whom they thought should be Time Magazine's Person of the Year, 2010. The world duly voted. They chose Julian Assange, with 382,026 votes, far outpacing the runner up, Recep Erdogan, at 233,639 votes. One would, therefore have thought, were Time Magazine a democracy, that Julian Assange would have won. He didn't. Mark Zuckerberg, with 18,353 votes, won. To be fair, Time Magazine did note, in its pages, that the final decision rests with its editors - however it does make clear that Time Magazine's competition is not a democratic one. The voice of the world's people is not one that Time Magazine listens to, on this issue, at least.

Now, Time Magazine is, of course in a difficult position. If it had gone with the world's voters and put Julian Assange on its cover, as Time's Person of the Year, it would have offended the US government, with whom Assange is presently battling. So, Time may have felt it had no option but to bury Assange's result, by putting him in third position, as they did. Yet, that opens them up for another problem: offending those very same voters. About one quarter of all the votes cast, were for Assange. That suggests that, most probably, one quarter of its readers support Assange as the top choice. Those people have been snubbed. Their views have been dismissed. That could have repercussions for the sales of Time Magazine since there is one thing that is very obvious about Assange's supporters: they are very passionate. So, Time Magazine, could now be in the position of having irked many passionate people, who are likely to do word of mouth damage to Time Magazine.

There is a lesson here for Time, I think. If Time does not wish to be held to the views of its readers, then it should not even have a poll, on the matter of whom should be Time's Person of the Year. It is a kind of faux engagement and fake democracy, to do so.

Time should also reflect on this: Mark Zuckerberg does not appear to be that popular a figure. When you consider that Facebook has 600 million users, 18,353 votes for him, on Time's poll seems mighty few. Whatever Facebook users think of Facebook, they don't go out of their way to be supportive of Zuckerberg, as a public figure.

Compare this to Julian Assange. He received nearly 21 times the number of votes as Mark Zuckerberg. Yet, he does not have a social network with 600,000,000 followers to his name. That suggests that, proportionately speaking, a lot more people have been impressed this year, by Assange's contributions (whatever anyone in particular may think of them, good or bad), than they have by Mark Zuckerberg's. It also suggests that Assange has been more influential in making an impact on people's minds, this year, than Zuckerberg has.

Time Magazine has played it safe: it has avoided causing tensions with the US authorities and has chosen the "local boy made good", as its hero of the year. It does also suggest that, as a US based media, it does not feel free to express a truth that would be unpalatable to the US government. However, I do wonder what impression this will leave on its many readers who voted for Assange. All will note that Time Magazine doesn't listen to them. Some may choose, as a result, to become ex-readers - they may call time on Time, as it were.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Wikileaks' paradoxical secrecy potential.

Wikileaks. There, I have said it. I have actually mentioned the biggest news story of the decade. It had to be...I have watched on the sidelines too long.

I have been thinking about what Wikileaks are doing and, it seems to me, that they may achieve the exact opposite of what they intend. Wikileaks has the parodoxical potential to usher in an era of much greater secrecy in the USA.

The problem is this: the more Wikileaks exposes the USA, the more the USA will wish to protect itself from exposure. At this time, they are attacking Wikileaks, for releasing the information and persecuting them in whatever way they can. However, this does not address the true problem here: Wikileaks is not the origin of the information: the USA government is. Some state employee - perhaps PFC Bradley Manning - perhaps not, has given Wikileaks all of its information. Indeed, Wikileaks is only able to function because there are US citizens (and those of other countries around the world), disgruntled enough to reveal "state secrets" to an outside organization. Wikileaks is not the problem, here: US internal security of information is. Quite simply, as it is presently organized, the USA is congenitally unable to keep secrets, because it is entrusting them to the wrong people.

Once the USA has destroyed Wikileaks - which it is clear it intends to do, it will have to turn its attention to the real problem: the USA itself. The only way the USA will be able, logically, to protect itself from a Wikileaks style problem, is if it massively upgrades the security on information within the USA. This means, essentially, one thing: restricting the number of people who have access to that information and vetting those people more carefully. At present, I have read in various online newspapers somewhere in the region of two to three million US government employees, in various functions, had access to the information that has been leaked to Wikileaks. That strikes me as far too many to have any measure of security. So, it seems inevitable that the USA will begin to restrict access to "secret" information, in the wake of Wikileaks. However, this creates its own problem. You see, if state employees do not have access to the information they need to make decisions, then the state itself cannot function effectively. Thus, the USA is stuck between two needs: to maintain security of information - and to be able to function as a state. The only way to resolve this would be to increase the height of the hierarchy and to centralize decision making, more. This means deciding upon a limited number of layers who have, perhaps varying access, to information - and cutting off large numbers of people who presently have access. Now, those who have been placed in the dark need to refer to "higher ups" for advice on matters on which they would previously be able to proceed themselves.

Clearly, what I have described is a logical consequence of seeking to reduce the chances of further leaks. It is also a culture of much enhanced secrecy. It is the kind of culture that, on the outside, America is not supposed to represent. Yet, that is precisely the kind of culture which Wikileaks may force America to become: one paranoid about secrecy, extremely hierarchical and compartmentalized. It would also, incidentally, be inflexible, slow to respond and may, at times, be paralyzed, by the inability of a small number of people to make a large number of decisions. In some ways, such a change in structure, would weaken America, in ways that would do more damage to America than, perhaps, a constant stream of Wikileaks revelations. Either way, America loses...

However, if America chooses the path to greater secrecy as a way to protect against Wikileaks and similar endeavours then, in a fundamental way, Julian Assange and Wikileaks, will have failed. They would have provoked a shift towards secrecy, when, in fact, they had sought a shift towards open-ness. Wikileaks may, in fact, create a much darker world than the one it seeks to usher in. Wikileaks may lead to a world steeped in virtually unbreachable secrecy, a world in which almost no-one knows what is going on - because access to that information has been restricted as much as it is possible to do so, and still have a functional State.

Yet, if Wikileaks loses, in this way, we all lose. America would become an even less pleasant place to live in, than it already is - and the world would know even less about its conduct, than they do now.

Whatever happens, this much is sure: long after President Obama has been forgotten (and he shall be, on a long enough timescale), Julian Assange and Wikileaks will be remembered, for what they sought to achieve, even if they never achieve it. Another thing is sure, too: America cannot win in this situation - indeed, they have already lost. They cannot suppress the flow of revelations - and they will only be able to prevent future ones, by changing the entire character of their nation, in ways that would be detrimental to it. Thus, it is not untrue to say, that, in this information war, one man has defeated the world's supposedly greatest superpower. History will never forget that...though future American textbooks, might leave that information out, if their present behaviour is extrapolated. Never mind...other countries will remember for them.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Robert Gates on USA's love for its allies.

Wikileaks is leaking again. Apparently, they are expected to upload 500,000 documents on the Iraq War. Why 500,000? That was the same number of pager messages uploaded for the 9/11 attack. It must be a good number in the world of leaks.

Anyway, whatever you might think of what Wikileaks is doing, whether you consider it good or bad, well-intentioned, or otherwise, I would like to draw your attention to something which, to my mind, is more informative than all of the Wikileaks put together. It is the words of Robert Gates, U.S. Defense Secretary.

Robert Gates, in a letter of August 16th, is quoted as saying, regarding the identification of Afghan collaborators, who might then be hunted down by the Taliban:

"Gates said disclosing the names of cooperating Afghans, who could become targets for the Taliban, could cause "significant harm or damage to national security interests of the United States." "

Hmm. I, personally, found those words rather shocking, for how the USA apparently views those who choose to ally themselves to them. It seems that the deaths of untold Afghans, who just happpened to have helped the USA, is harmful to the USA. Well, excuse me for speaking up at this point: but what about the tortured, dead Afghans and their bereaved families? Do they not count?

Primarily, the hunting down by the Taliban, of Afghan collaborators is NOT an issue of harm to US interests...it is a tragedy for those families who thought that they could do some good by helping the US. The fact that the US loses "useful" people in the tribes of Afghanistan should be the last thing on Gates' seemingly rather limited mind - or is that "rather limited heart".

A nation that thinks purely in terms of its own interests- as Robert Gates is doing on behalf of his nation - is not a nation that is doing good in the world. It is a nation that is serving itself and itself alone. If I were an Afghan tribesman and I had come to understand that my death would mean nothing more than "harm to US national security interests", I would not, in any way, cooperate with anyone who represented the US, in any endeavour whatsoever. For I would understand this: the US would be doing nothing more than using me and my people to serve its own ends, without any real care for us at all.

Now, I wonder how widely that comment of Robert Gates has been reported? Has it reached the Afghan tribesmen - or the Iraqi equivalent? If so, I would expect a rapid withdrawal of cooperation in those territories, with the US. That unwitting comment, in the true sense of lacking wits, of Robert Gates is, in my view, far more damaging to the US, than all of the Wikileaks put together. The most damaging aspect about it is that it is the truth. The US, as Robert Gates makes clear, sees its allies solely in terms of how useful they are to the US. It does not see them as real human beings, living real lives, with hopes, fears and aspirations, with families and loved ones. It sees them as "assets", to be deployed for its own ends, to aid its "national security interests".

There is a coldness in Robert Gates' world that makes me wonder what he really understands about life. In the values he expresses, there is no mark of humanity, no mark of concern for his fellow man - just an interest in an abstract idea: "national security interests". He has taken a tragic possibility - the hunting down and inevitable torture to death of those who helped the US in Afghanistan - and turned it into the emotional equivalent of a number. He has emptied it of life, of feeling, of tragedy and made it into something mechanical: the harm to national security interests.

It makes me shudder, a little, that a man with so little apparent, displayed humanity, is in charge of America's military, in a bureaucratic sense. If he cares so little for the lives and wellbeing of his allies, does he care as little for the men under his charge?

I don't know about you, but in a role in which life and death decisions are made, I would want a very human, human being in charge - not a robot. Robots make decisions that do not count the costs in terms of human lives and human suffering - so robots make decisions that lead directly to the loss of human lives and the infliction of human suffering.

It seems ironic to me that Robert Gates, should have a name that reminds me of Bill Gates, whose lifework is entirely robotic, in character. It seems as if the US Defense Secretary was given a name to imply his character.

It doesn't really matter what the Wikileaks contain - for nothing could be more harmful to the image of the US, than the truth that Robert Gates has spoken. Those who help the US are, in his view, and implicitly in the view of his nation, or its leaders, anyway, nothing more than instruments of national security. Now, do you want to be considered an instrument of national security...or a human being filled with life, love and hope? Would you work with someone who thought of you as an instrument of national security, and who would, not only not mourn your death, in the line of helping him, but who think purely in terms of the harm HE had suffered by your death?

I wouldn't. Nor, I imagine, would anyone else who learns just what Robert Gates thinks of them.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.htmlI also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.Y

ou can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)