Big Brother's Embrace

Big Brother as conceived in Orwell's 1984, not some cable-TV-real-life thing, is not really necessary in a society which actively seeks to pin point and locate its members for reasons which are not entirely clear, but which seem to come down to "We do it because we can."

I mean, why would anyone want to self-locate themselves all the time? I am at church, I am at the gym, I am at Lucky Baldwin's for Ladies Night....
Why?
Of course, I do not even like biographies for the most part. I was reading about James Joyce's biographies in the NY Times Review of Books, and even that was boring beyond description. I guess I do not get it: I enjoy sporting events greatly, but I find the spectacle of watching and listening to sports figure talk about their feats to be a gruesome form of torture.
Similarly, even though I may read a book and esteem it a masterpiece of literature, the entire idea of going to Christmas dinner at the author's house and chit-chatting with him, his aunts, nieces, and nephews, to be a Fuseli nightmare of the first water.

I myself write. I know how different writing is from speaking and conversing, particularly face-to-face, and I have grown old watching people afflicted with my conversation seeking ways to extricate themselves and yet maintain some sense of dignity and decorum.... Even Tom Wolfe in person cannot be as natty and perfectly clothed as Tom Wolfe the feature of our individual imaginations and our media imaginations.

Anyway, read the following about supplying too much information on the web.
Remember, individually we may all be saints, but let us form groups, corporations, and national governments and we become akin to the spirit of Negation!

NewScientist
Big Brother Is Watching Facebook And Twitter
21 June 2012 by Jim Giles

...officials at the Department of State issued a procurement notice on 1 June asking software developers to submit bids for a contract to supply tools that provide "deep analysis of topics, conversations, networks, and influencers of the global social web". These tools will analyse conversations taking place in at least seven foreign languages, including Chinese and Arabic...

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