The Dumbest Generation… Really?

    Ok, so the inspiration for this article comes from Cracked.com, but really it is an interesting phenomenon. Basically, the article talks about how technology took over in 2008. Two entries (Cracked likes lists…) talk about how the older generations (X, Boomers, etc.) perceive us. These perceptions have to do with the way we interact with our technology which is inherently different than one born before the internet does.

    Every time the media talk about websites such as Facebook or Digg is to either talk about how they are the future (really… they are the present!) or about how someone posted something stupid on one of them. The truth is that we communicate seamlessly using these types of technology. I always find it funny when people say that they "check their e-mails twice a day". We do not do that, our e-mails check themselves and alert us through various tools (well, the main ones anyways). It takes us five minutes to go through our new mails, Facebook events, RSS feeds, etc. We can be extremely prolific.

    From the outside, we seem to be losing our time. A digital immigrant takes a few hours to gather the information we get in minutes, therefore, posting several thousand messages on Digg or a message board implies a large amount of time lost but it is not necessarily true. Contrary to any generation before ours, we, from birth have been growing up in an environment where physical reality was just one part of our environment. The digital world is not just a tool to us. It is part of our very being.

    Now, the purpose of this post is not to say that we are perfect that all of our perceived flaws are actually strong points. No, in most cases, those flaws are still flaws. We do waste time on Web 2.0 websites or devices. We do procrastinate and some of us (not all!) are idiots. Those flaws are not, like some people seem to think, huge crippling problems plaguing our generation. They are the same flaws that have been there since the dawn of the human race. The difference is that, to offset those flaws, we are more efficient at using the nearly infinite pool of information within the web.

    To end, I just want to say that I can remember when I first started to use the internet. The children born today will not. For them, information will have always been free and available. I personally cannot even grasp how the world will change once they get in power.

    

Merry Christmas

Writing my next article is taking longer than I thought, but I want to take the time to wish you all a Merry Christmas: Western Society's most popular holiday! I could say that we shouldn't forget about those in need, but I'm sure that you aren't. This is why I'll say instead that no matter how bad we think it is right now, the future we can see from here seems to be the brightest in the history of mankind.

One day our grandchildren will go to museums to see what poverty was like. – Mohammad Yunus

Free Speech

Richard Martineau wrote about an Imam in the "Journal de Montreal" that was calling for the death of homosexuals, feminists and pretty much the whole population of the earth except for him. Now, while I do think that the Imam (who is apparently of Haitian descent) is downright insane, I also think he has the right to talk about whatever he likes. The thing about free speech is that you CAN be a racist and a bigot. You can even start a movement against free speech if you feel like it. That's the definition of being free.

On a related note, the grief against the imam was that he was inciting mail. Again, it seems to be technically true, but the guy was such a caricature that it's ridiculous to think that anyone with half a brain would take him seriously. Then again, this is just what the media did by giving him a tribune. Now, the whole of the province knows about his ideas; his message is being distributed widely. I think that collectively, we should stop caring about what such people have to say. The good thing about free speech is that while everyone can say whatever they want, you don't really have to listen!

Peace is also information… kind of

    In continuation with the post about violence, I figured I should talk about the opposite. There was some sort of information a government or ruling body could get from their population being peaceful. The thing is that, as more as I thought about it, it was not really the peace itself, but the absence of violence that was important.

    The absence of violence means that the population is content. When your policies are adequate and not revolutionary people won't complain too much. Humans seem to be hardwired against change, looking for familiarity and order on a world (and universe) that seems bent on creating as much chaos as possible. The problem is that we tend to view a peaceful state, one without demonstrations, strikes and the like as desirable. It is not.

    The majority of the population, taken as a whole will always prefer the status quo, provided that it fulfills their basic needs. The problem is that "status quo" in the case of a country or society really stands for slow decay. The society needs to adapt to an ever changing environment. This makes rules and laws which were salient when they were enacted obsolete or downright ridiculous at another point in time. As I said in a previous post, this dynamic society is also what makes leaders lose their appeal once their task, whatever that may be, has been accomplished.

    Complete chaos, although it might be attuned to the universe, is also unwanted. We are genetically engineered to live in order and a chaotic society would be uncomfortable for most individuals. This is why war-torn environment are so hard on the people living within them. The goal is to get a society that is not completely chaotic, but has some of that uncertainty factor within it, for that uncertainty is a "symptom" of a society adapting to its environment.

Historical Day

This is truly an historical day!

Stéphan Dufour has been acquitted

Violence is information

I could be talking about the latest elections in Quebec and the demise of the ADQ, but there is a lot of movement on that front. Also, I read something this week (sorry, I forgot who and which newspaper) about the use of violence as a political statement that I found interesting.

    The violence in Greece now is seen as the failure of the government to satisfy part of its population. The same was true with the riots in France a few months earlier. The result of a series of riots is always a will to make the reasons for people to riot disappear. What this means is that those that were rioted against will work as hard as they can to ensure that the rioters get what they want. Of course, some of the latter will be arrested and prosecuted, but, taken as a society, rioters win. Violence is an effective way to get a message across.

    Coming back to our neighborhood, Montreal-North's riot achieved more to put the problems of the population in the media than the efforts social workers have been putting in for years. I'm not sure this will translate into genuine change, but this became an item of concern for every level of government (not with the same importance, of course).

    The problem is that violence is scary. Unlike a peaceful march, you fear to lose something in a riot. This fear doesn't end with the end of the issue, but becomes pervasive to society. The rioters are labeled as violent barbarians and stigmatized in a way relative to the number and intensity of the riots. In the end, it is a question of gains versus losses. People intrinsically know this and usually will not get violent without a good reason: if you are cold and starving, losing a bit a reputation won't really make you change your mind. This is why, even though some riots have trivial surface reason, they always underline a deeper problem. They truly are a political statement.

A Coalition Government in Canada!

Ottawa has gotten interesting again. It is now completely overshadowing the current Quebec campaign and with reason: what may happen on December 8^th would be an historical event rarely seen in the Commonwealth. Now a lot of people have talked about how it would or would not be a good idea for the coalition government to happen so I'm not going to talk about that. Instead I want to talk about how this makes people feel in general about our political leaders.

    Stephen Harper's economic address was seen by the media and, by extension, the population at large as an underhanded tactic to let his ideology true and destroy his rivals. On the other side of the Parliament, the opposition is not out to gain power. Nothing short of that will satisfy them. None of the sides in this seem to put their people in front of their own interests. In my opinion, this is the kind of behavior that will, in the end, increase voter apathy towards our politicians. In the leader-follower dynamic, the followers are not in service of the leader. They are actually looking for the opposite: a leader that will fulfill their needs.

In my opinion, politicians have not been acting as leaders for some time now. Leadership is about setting goals and finding the best strategy to achieve those goals. Now, I think that deep down, most people go into politics because they want to make their area better. Therefore, what the differences between political parties are more about the tools than the goals themselves. Some politicians, however, paint their rivals as the devil. They are the ones that are the woes of the country and, for some obscure reason, want to deprive you of everything you worked for and make you miserable. A true leader would look at his rivals and find ways to work with them. The people know this. This is why, notwithstanding the power-grabbing idea behind it, the coalition government is somewhat alluring to the population.

We want to see our leaders work together for our greater good. I don't think anyone thinks that any one of the main federal parties only have bad ideas. We want to see they pool their strengths, form a parliament that would work as a team towards our greater good.