When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Here’s Christine Emba’s take from the Washington Post on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress:
Facebook may tout itself as an idealistic operation, connecting humans across the globe for the greater good, but its business model is based on monetizing as much personal data as possible. In essence, the company has ushered in a new era of what is essentially personal surveillance for profit. Facebook may be making itself safer or more secure, but it hasn’t answered the question of whether we should continue to interact with it at all.
Mine is somewhat different. What I saw was tremendous immaturity, not just on Zuckerberg’s part but on the part of the Congressmen questioning him as well. I don’t think they’re alone.
Adulthood means taking responsibility. For your own conduct. For the results of your conduct. For paying your bills. For your support and your family’s. For your children. It used to be that you began taking responsibility when you were an adolescent, were an adult with adult responsibilities including marriage and children when you were 18, and by the time you were 25 were expected to be serious, grave, stable adults. No more.
Now adolescence is greatly prolonged, frequently into your 30s or even later, and that period is growing ever-longer. Some people never take responsibility.
Zuckerberg is a kid. He acts like a kid. He has the moral consciousness of a kid. And it’s not just him. Much of Trump’s behavior is most easily explained as the casual cruelty of adolescence as practiced by a 70 year old man.
And it’s not just us. The Europeans aren’t taking responsibility for their own defense—they’re relying on their Uncle Sugar. Or health care research, for that matter. Most of the world depends on American research, God help them. What passes for research here may be inadequate here but it’s miles beyond what’s being done in China, India, and nearly everywhere else.
I don’t know how we’ll survive as a country or, indeed, as a species without adults.
One indication of adolescence is not realising how much you do not know, and how much of what you do know is not new.
Computing began long before silicon, transistors, or vacuum tubes. The Jacquard Loom or wire wraps pre-date those, and it is likely that there were other examples.
Zuckerberg and the others think they have created something new, but parting a sucker and his/her money is nothing new.
What is this book of faces of which you speak……..