Enjoy the Peepshow

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“We want to connect,” writes Hal Niedzviecki. “We’re willing to reveal ourselves…if only that we might, for a moment or two, alleviate the loneliness we feel all around us.”

Niedzviecki’s new book, The Peep Diaries (City Lights), is a sympathetic profile of the geniuses, eccentrics, and normal folks in what he calls the world of “Peep”â€"revelation via electronic interconnectivity on a previously unimaginable scale. The desire to see and be seen isn’t new, but it is newly tech-powered. Through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, reality TV, and YouTube, we’re sharing more of our private lives and learning more about strangers’ than ever before.

Niedzviecki avoids the doomsaying that plagues so much commentary about sociotechnological change. While he discusses Peep’s troubling implications for privacy, surveillance, and criminal justice, he also recognizes that interconnectivity can be empowering, educational, and entertaining. Peep’s potential to add value to our lives deserves such reflective appreciation. 

NEXT: Risk, Responsibility, Robots — Singularity Summit In New York

Bill Flanigen

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  1. abercrombie milano
    May.27.2010 at 6:37 am

    My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I’m sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane. Even some cursory knowledge of Hebrew and doing some mathematics and logic will tell you that you really won’t get the full deal by just doing regular skill english reading for those books. In other words, there’s more to the books of the Bible than most will ever grasp. I’m not concerned that Mr. Crumb will go to hell or anything crazy like that! It’s just that he, like many types of religionists, seems to take it literally, take it straight…the Bible’s books were not written by straight laced divinity students in 3 piece suits who white wash religious beliefs as if God made them with clothes on…the Bible’s books were written by people with very different mindsets…in order to really get the Books of the Bible, you have to cultivate such a mindset, it’s literally a labyrinth, that’s no joke

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