A Digital Magna Carta?

It may be said that the Digital Economy, also known as the New Economy or the Internet Economy, started in Silicon Valley, in California, during the 1990’s. The term was coined from the title of Don Tapscott's 1995 best-seller, The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence, one of first books to show how the Internet would change the way we do business.

One of the commonalities of all economic revolutions, whether the Industrial age, Colonialism, or the introduction of Banking, and thus modern Capitalism, is the disruption they cause, not only to economic patterns, but also to society at large; repercussions that reverberate for decades, sometimes even centuries. An example would be the economic revolution that occurred at the beginning of history, when humans moved from hunting/gathering to agriculture, leading to the establishment of towns and cities, the flourishing of language and literature, and the formation of a class of people much wealthier than the rest.

A common feature all these economic revolutions share is the transfer of assets from common ownership to private ownership. During the move to an agricultural society, land, which the hunters/gatherers considered common to all, became privatized. Without privatization of land, agriculture would not have been possible. During the Industrial revolution, resources needed for production, such as water, timber, and iron ore, became privatized, allowing profits from these resources to accumulate to industrialists or their share-owners.

The digital economy is privatizing information, specifically, personal information. In almost all cases, it is being gathered surreptitiously, stored on servers beyond our reach, for indeterminate periods of time, and sold to other companies (and more ominously, to police and other government authorities,) for profit. We know, for example, that Facebook can come up with a relatively good idea of who you are; what you read, your political inclinations, your sexuality, what you buy and what you watch; but most people have no idea how much personal data is being gathered. For example, Google is able to access, from smartphones, data about when you wake up, when you get into a car and every place you visit--and download all that information onto their servers, and sell that information to advertisers. Using algorithms, they are able to determine items you may buy: for example, stopping at a school every day signals interest in children’s or educational products; and at a hospital, medical or pharmaceutical products.

History has shown that invariably, developments of this sort lead to social backlash. The Magna Carta was essentially a revolt by the British Lords who owned (relatively) smaller amounts of land against the King, who exerted ownership rights over the entire country. The revolt against the Industrial Revolution led to the idea of Communism, whose central tenet is the common ownership of the means of production.

The revolt against the Digital Economy will center, naturally, around the ownership of personal information. Currently, ordinary people have not challenged the existing legal and political systems on this topic. Google, Amazon and Facebook, among others, have privatized personal data. They collect it from you at no cost, with relative secrecy, and for the profit of their shareholders. This privatization has led to enormous profits—Mark Zukerberg’s billions are a prime example.

This push-back is at its infancy. There have been calls for governmental regulation of Facebook, but given its wealth and power, and the lack of exposure of this issue, it remains to seen how far these calls will go. If history repeats itself, the future will hold a struggle where ordinary citizens will have to claw back their rights to own, or at least, fairly share, their personal information with extremely large, secretive and manipulative companies who are well on their way to create real-time, moving digital avatars of each one of us in their computers.

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "The Yoga Zapper - A Novel," published by Books We Love. He lives in Calgary, Canada, with  his wife Anuradha, son Rishi ,daughter Gopi. He can be sometimes be spotted chanting mantra absent-mindedly in the city's parks.

www.mohanashtakala.com

www.bookswelove.com

A Valentine Worth Waiting For...by Sheila Claydon

Sheila's books at Books We Love

So it's my turn to post on Valentine's Day again! Not surprising really as I always post on the 14th of every month. Last year I wrote in detail about the history behind Valentine's Day. How it started off as a pagan fertility ritual which segued into a feast day in the Catholic Calendar of Saints when a  third century Pope  named 14 February Saint Valentine's Day. However it wasn't until the Middle Ages that the poet Chaucer linked St Valentine with romantic love. Now, centuries later, it's hearts and roses all the way...or is it?

I thought so, but then I write romantic novels so I would, wouldn't I. And remembering back to my own long ago youth, I thought all young girls longed for a valentine card to land on their doormat. I thought they spent a lot of time yearning for romance and Mr Right, but a recent conversation with some modern teenagers has shown me otherwise. While they are happy to be part of a mixed sex friendship group, like it in fact, they are not looking for a boyfriend. I was fascinated so I kept listening.

One of the best comments was, 'why would I want to tie myself down with a boyfriend when I'm this young? There is a great big world out there full of things I haven't seen or don't know yet. I want a career too, so I've a lot of studying and learning to do. Being exclusive to a boy would get in the way of all that, and it might mean I wouldn't see so much of my friends either. I'd rather just be part of a fun group until I'm much older.'

These are all beautiful, bright, confident girls. They don't know it of course, because their teenage hormones often tell them otherwise, so sometimes they beat themselves up about their looks, their figures, their exam results...but on good days, when they look in the mirror they know, and they also know when the boys in their group ask them for a date. 

Sometimes one of them succumbs for one date, or several, but never more. Then it's back to the friendship group, boys and all, where they variously do things like skating, sailing, horse riding, hiking, playing sport, eating pizza, having sleepovers (the girls), playing musical instruments, singing, experimenting with hair and make-up, watching films, baking, reading, discussing life...

So off you go St Valentine. The young girls of the twenty-first century might want romance eventually...but not yet! They have too much to see and to do before they take it seriously, and they are quite right. It is a big and interesting world out there and they have a lot of living to do.

In my book Remembering Rose, the heroine is also looking for more. What is different about her is that she already has exactly what she needs, she just can't see it even though it's right under her nose. There isn't a valentine in the book, but there is love...real love...the sort of love worth waiting for. The sort of love I hope all those beautiful girls find one day...when they are ready.

Golden Girl is a Books We Love March release where another of Sheila Claydon's heroines finds love - but not until she's ready.

In the Name of Love by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/


Family love stories

#1

My husband and I lived on an acreage and my husband work in the country for an oil company. Therefore he didn’t make it into town to buy me a Valentine’s card. So early Valentine’s morning he went outside and packed some snow into a pile. He got a can of red spray paint and painted a heart with an arrow through it on the snow. He also printed Be My Valentine on it. I could see the pile of snow from the kitchen window for months as it was the last snow to melt in the spring.

#2

My mother had moved from Alberta to B.C. to pick fruit and then got a job at a store in Vancouver. Mom’s parents, my grandparents sold their farm in Alberta and bought an acreage near Vancouver. My father was in World War II and was repatriated to Vancouver when it was over.

When dad left the army he got a job and began to look for a place to buy. My grandfather’s health was bad and so they decided to sell their acreage. One of mom’s friends was my dad’s sister and my dad found out about it through his sister. He bought my grandparents acreage and met my mother. They married seven months after meeting and were married for fifty-four years.

The way dad put it: He bought the acreage and got the daughter for free.