Homestead mailing list

[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Lynn Wigglesworth wrote:
> > What if that selectiveness becomes more than advertising...like the
> >  example I gave about spinning news stories.
>
> That's why we have the internet. I read many different news sites, 
> both left and right. I try to balance out all the biases.

Of course, I do too.

It is about information gathering and control based on the knowledge of
individuals.  It is not about your ability to gather information(and by
the way, most Americans don't use the internet the way we here on the
list do-at best they are MySpacing or shopping e-bay or writing email.
If they are connected and do read the news, they generally are reading
from CNN, ABC, or whatever news source they watch on TV.), but it is
about the information being gathered about you as you go about your
life, and then, how that information is used.  It is simply warehoused
by the collector, or is it sold and combined with other databases that
can be searched or filtered as the need or interest arises.
You are educated Lynn, but most of America is not, at least not to the
same degree as you, and probably not to the same degree as even I am.

Look at this company.
http://www.allmediainc.com/
 Click on some of the mailing lists that it sells...like the Jewish one
or the Ethnic one or the Poolowners or Pet owners...  How do you think
companies like this acquire this information?  It may be good business,
but it has serious potential for abuse, both by corporations and
governments.  Note, too, that they have the mailing lists for all those
magazines on the right side, as well as email addresses and other mined
information.  Just looking at their website gives me the heebeejeebees.
 I wonder how much spam I will now get.

I think I forgot this link earlier, but this one is for Bob and others
who are concerned enough to take action.

http://www.cotse.net/index.html


> > I suppose you
> could make the case that all the information I found on him was 
> public since much of it was from his own websites, but that is a lot 
> of
> > information.
>
> If he openly puts all this information out there, he must be proud of
>  his life and accomplishments, as we all should be. If he lives in a 
> trendy neighborhood, is an activist, and still hugs trees, 'them' 
> knowing all that stuff hasn't affected his life.  Maybe if you offer 
> all that information openly, it CAN'T be used against you....if it's 
> public knowledge, it becomes a non-issue. Like the cameras at 
> Walmart, if you don't care that everyone knows "I went to Walmart 
> today", 'them' knowing that you went to Walmart today has no power.


I try to take that attitude and think along those lines when I realize
how much personal information anyone can now gain about me just from
reading the archives here.  BUT, "Hippie" changed his name AFTER all the
negative stuff-the arrests, etc...Had I not known his full, given name,
I could not have found such information.  80% of what I read was under
his new name.  I was able to find his new name with a few additional
Googles of peripheral information of his old life.  So, I kind of doubt
he is really *that* proud of his past, but he is a writer, and we all
know that writers like attention and like to be read, so who knows.

B

--
“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to
hate. Hate leads to suffering.”        Yoda