Welcome to another day, ladies and gentlemen.
I really want to follow up on my experiment with Google Docs, this blog and a few of the other experiments I'm working on with technology and education. Also, I have some new theories on my research topic to run by you. But, I was puttering around last night and ended up watching Penn Says on Youtube. I'm a pretty big fan of his as a magician, I used to play around with stage magic back in the day, but I wasn't very good at it. I also think he's an interesting person. We agree on a lot of fundamental issues, we disagree strongly on a lot of others.
Penn Jillette is a pretty famous person. A celebrity, in fact. He does stage shows in Las Vegas, has a series on Showtime. I recall that he's had a few network TV specials as well. With his partner Teller, they've put out two or three books as well. The Penn Says series is basically his video diary. He puts it out on Sony's video platform, and it eventually trickles down to YouTube. He talks about whatever happens to be on his mind that day, and often addresses comments from the audience. Pretty cool.
In a previous show, he talked about sending his kids to a fancy private school in Las Vegas versus his lower middle class background. The episode is called "Have I Revealed Too Much," and there's a lot of harsh language in it - so if you're at work, or offended by that kind of language, I'd recommend not clicking the embedded video below.
For those who didn't watch: Mr. Jillette, after making that video I described above went to the parent's orientation night at that private school, and it turned out the principal was a fan. He watched Penn on his Showtime series, and on Penn Says. He said he hoped that they could make Penn feel good about sending his children to this private school. Penn felt uneasy about the principal watching him in a program he puts out for the public.
Now I want to contrast this with Penelope Trunk. I don't know that I would call myself a fan of her work, but I think it is interesting. She seems to write about her life, especially her personal life in a very open fashion out here. She's been called on it by commenters on her blog, people on twitter, and people in her personal life.
One interesting difference between them - Mr. Jillette is only a bit younger than my parents. He would have been entering high school the year after they graduated. Ms. Trunk is a bit older than me, there are about seven years between us. According to this article, and several like it people younger than me are very willing to share personal information online. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, was recently raked over the coals for saying "Privacy is Dead" or "Privacy is no longer a social norm" depending upon which site you're reading. The only issue here, is that he didn't say that. He essentially said that social norms regarding privacy are changing, and that people are willing to share more of their lives online. This is not immoderate statement and I would challenge even my most critical reader to deny it.
If the social norms are changing, and I believe they are, what does that mean for us? I can see a few advantages to a more radical version of this change through the lens of my upcoming paper as being a relative "good thing." I can also see why it would scare people, and even I find it a bit unsettling at times.
Welcome to the future, ladies and gentlemen, cake will be provided shortly.
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