I'm only a quarter of the way through the book, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on the beginning.
First, I think the copyright/distribution of the book itself is interesting. At least in my ebook version there's a nice little introduction about it. There's a lot of controversy right now about selling and sharing digital books. It's interesting to me because that was how I found this book in the first place. I read it a few years ago because it was free. The purpose was to allow people to read it who might not otherwise. And that was certainly the case for me.
Also, we've mentioned several times the importance we place on plausibility in science fiction. The setting of this book is not hard to imagine. In many instances our technology seems capable or frighteningly close to what is being described. It's also relatable. I remember in high school we found a way to get around blocked sites so we could check facebook on the school computers. This just felt like the next step.
Finally, the abuse of technology by authority figures in the novel concerns me. It's a relief to step away from reading and say, "It's only a story." At the same time, I have to acknowledge the reality of these types of things. I suspect we will face even more debates and decisions about privacy in the future.
So far I'm enjoying Little Brother, and I can't wait to finish it.
I had the awesome experience of reading this story while I was in San Diego this summer on an internship. I started reading this story about the same time that Comic-Con was going on. When you say it was a relief to step away and realize that it was a work a fiction, I wish I could have done the same. It was a bit surreal to picture the kids in the story making the transition from innocent cos-players and gamers to social activists. I won't lie, I got pretty paranoid for about a week while all the Comic-Con people were in town, mostly because I could easily picture them being in the same situation as the story in a few short years.
ReplyDeleteMany people in the xbox communities can already do similar things with their xbox. This is a conversation my fiance and I have quite often since he's a pretty hardcore gamer. This future is not far off, and I could very easily see Microsoft releasing similar software for people to tweak as they see fit. It seems like an awesome opportunity to be able to manipulate technologies to your advantage, but there will always be people in higher positions wanting to limit those possibilities.
I'm sorry if I said anything to confuse you since you haven't finished it yet, but it's definitely my favorite story I've read for this class yet.
One facet of the story that really interested me is the abuse of technology by the government. The fact is camera surveillance and tracking someone via their phone is not to far off in the future. Now I'm not saying that the government currently does this to the average citizen but I still get a small chill up my spine every time I see an add next to my email that is tailored to me based off the content of that email.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I could really relate to the school security in Little Brother. I remember seeing the implementation of restricted internet browsing in middle school and security cameras in my high school. As with any security measure, we all found ways to get around them and they never helped solve a damn thing.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I know exactly what you're talking about with email ads. I'm strangely fascinated by them. Sometimes they're actually funny because they're based on the content of emails but lack the context.
ReplyDeleteAlso, that leads into another interesting discussion about advertising. I read an article a while ago that I wish I could find. Basically it was about how some companies can track purchases you make with a credit card, create a profile of the consumer, and advertise based on things they're likely to buy. Which of course, as you alluded to, people find disturbing.