Originally Posted by
ScoutHikerDad
:HJ
Sailor-Yours is also an interesting point. I don't know much about Finland (vodka, saunas, ice, midnight sun? My next-door neighbors are of Finnish descent), but I have no doubt your culture is as private as you say. In the USA now, however, it's interesting to me how now-iconic internet paradigm shifters such as YouTube, blogs, plus social media such as Facebook and Twitter have dramatically altered American views on privacy. I don't do Facebook because I don't want my life to be that public (and as a teacher in a conservative Southern school district, exposed to prying, judgmental eyes). But everywhere you see people posting their every sneeze, the daily moods of their cats, and yes, even their sex lives, on these media for the world to see. Do they ever stop to think how permanent (and disastrously misused) these things can be?
Our daily lives are now so surveilled, our every move and transaction so digitally stored, our movements open to GPS tracking with the simplest technology, that I'm not even sure we have the expectation of privacy any more. I wonder what Orwell would think of the parallel rise of these phenomena with a government entity such as Homeland Security.
Having said all that, I love to brag on here about the limited gear I can afford, and talk endlessly about esoteric details of our hobby no one else knows (or cares) about. Same with my fly-fishing forums.
Anyway, sorry for the boring hijack, gang. I have been interested in these sorts of pseudo-sociological questions ever since I semi-slept through a 7:30 am undergrad course on the topic a quarter century ago (and behind mirrored aviators, for god's sake-I must have come off as a real douchebag, now that I think of it!).
Happy Thanksgiving, all! Will shave with my Fili DT 12 tomorrow before eating a dangerous amount of food. Aaron/SHD