It's handy living with a
Crusader for Justice. He and I can have interesting couch-side chats about liberty, censorhip, control, morals, hegemony and the like. This is good. He also keeps an eye open for interesting bits and pieces on The Inner Tube.
Having
recently released Filters on Flickr -- where one of the main premises is that people can
self-moderate their content -- I've found myself thinking more about the idea of government and authority.
It's been particularly interesting to me that some people expect to be told how this self-moderation should work. The paradox is that any system decreed by the "State" is inflexible, immediately not suitable for everyone, and so open to interpretation and argument. I'm very curious to see how actual self-moderation (as opposed to community policing) will play out, given that no rules of engagement have actually been laid out. Do people innately possess an understanding of the Common Good, or, the common safety? Or, for that matter, the common decency?
I've asked myself how to present this lack of
Decree to people who need guidance, and it seems to me that the easiest way to do it is to present a number of scenarios, rather than hard, fast rules. To help filter content which may not be suitable for global public view, one could ask oneself:
Would you show this photo to someone sitting next to you on a bus? If there is even the slightest hesitation, that indicates that the photo is probably not "safe". Etc.
Anyway, Jason (My Roomie Crusader) put me on to a fascinating short series of programs from the BBC called
The Trap, about how government mixes with Game Theory mixes with psychiatry mixes with self-interest. Very interesting program, particularly given current thoughts about the power and efficacy of government.
Here's a the program, if you have an hour to spare: