Category: Life

Leaving Facebook, Life

2019 Resolution: Leave Facebook

Posted on by rudiseitz

My resolution for 2019 is to permanently leave Facebook. I’m giving myself an absolute deadline of December 31, 2019 to do this, but I’m hoping to achieve it sooner. I say “achieve” because it’s going to be hard. I don’t want to lose my connection to my friends but I can’t maintain my self-respect if I stay.

It’s been said that leaving Facebook is an ineffective form of protest because Facebook doesn’t need any particular user. Leaving Facebook hurts the departing user more than it hurts Facebook.

I look at it differently. The power you wield when you leave Facebook is more than the power to deprive Facebook of your own future content stream. It is the power to help others make the same decision. The reason we’re all on Facebook is because all our friends are there. Your friends are the bonds that hold you in place. If fewer of your friends were there it would be easier for you to leave. So, when you make the decision to leave, you’re paving the way for your friends to do likewise in the future. This is not to say that enabling your friends to leave should be your primary reason for leaving, but just that it is a powerful consequence of your choice.

What if you’re not ready to leave? I would offer this New Year’s message: Be faithful to the people in your life, but please cheat on corporations; specifically, please cheat on Facebook. Let me explain by asking you a question.

Is Facebook the only place online where you offer your favorite recipes, your music recommendations, your travel photos? Is Facebook the one giant corporation to which you contribute your wit, wisdom, and humor? Is Facebook the only advertising behemoth with which you share your dinner plans and your deepest secrets? Is Facebook the only place online where I could go to find out what’s happening with you, what’s important to you, what’s funny to you?

If the answer is yes, my next question is why does Facebook deserve your fidelity? Why have you let yourself enter into a one-way exclusive relationship with Mark Zuckerberg’s profit engine where it receives everything you’ve got while only pretending to keep a reciprocal commitment to you, to your privacy, security, and well-being?

If you’re not ready to leave Facebook yet, at least consider playing around with other platforms. Next time it seems to you that the easiest way to share a thought is to post it on Facebook, try tweeting it. Maybe start a personal blog. Want to share a photo? Experiment with a photo-sharing site other than Facebook or Instagram.

You don’t have to leave Facebook to take action towards reducing its grip on all of us. You can do that by avoiding one-sided monogamy with Facebook. You can do that by turning to Facebook less, depending on it less, and sharing outside it more.

I’ll be delighted if you join me in leaving Facebook this year. I hope you’ll copy my New Year’s resolution. But for those who aren’t ready to leave, please resolve to start cheating on Facebook in 2019 if you aren’t doing that already. Meanwhile, stay good and true to the people in your life – they’re the ones who deserve your faith. Happy new year!

See also: The Myth of the Guarded Facebook User

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Life

Halloween Costumes at Yale and Beyond

Posted on by rudiseitz

The controversy over Halloween costumes at Yale appears to position those who advocate for freedom of expression against those who advocate for cultural sensitivity. The conflict is artificial.

The right to free speech may be honored and protected without being exercised at every opportunity.

Racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression may be fought without ascribing the worst possible intention to every careless or insensitive act.

Above all, we should be good neighbors to each other. That means we should avoid offending each other without a good reason; conversely, we should explore all avenues before taking offense. I should risk offending you, and you should risk offending me, if one of us has something important but uncomfortable to say. But I should not risk offending you, and you should not risk offending me, if the only gain is a fleeting thrill for one of us, while the loss is our relationship itself.

You might perceive a Halloween costume as offensive, while I might consider it silly and benign. To be a good neighbor to you, I should avoid wearing it. I should avoid it simply because I know it offends you, and because I value our relationship as neighbors above whatever fun the costume would afford me: I should make this choice even if I can’t fully understand the costume’s significance in your eyes. In respecting you, I should not fear that I have jeopardized my own freedom of expression, because that freedom is still available. At the same time, if I were to wear the costume, and if you were to see me wearing it, you should not condemn me without knowing my intent, and if my intent is frivolous, not malicious, you should treat me as someone ignorant, not malicious. If, in the end, you choose to look away from the costume, you should not feel that you have given up the important battle against the prejudice you see represented in the costume; the battle goes on.

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Life

Assertion Failed

Posted on by rudiseitz

Welcome, Assertion Failed!

Turnstile's Assertion Failed

A subway turnstile running Microsoft Visual C++ would not let me pass this evening. The screen says “Assertion Failed!”, a common software error which basically means “Something turned out not to be true.” Now I can relate to the anguish of discovering that, because much of what I believe at any point in time turns out not to be true. But please, my train was coming! Luckily, there was another turnstile next to this one, still convinced of its assertions, and in that blissful state of self-trust, quite ready to accept my $2.

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