The Currency of the Future
Believe it or not, for once this post isn't about crypto. I know it's probably easy to go there when you hear the words "currency of the future", but nope, that's not what this is about. It's actually probably a bit of a misnomer to describe what I am talking about as the currency of the future. In fact, it has probably been a currency long before currency was ever a thing. It's been traded, discovered, sought after, and hoarded for millenia.
Based on the opening photo, your mind may have immediately gone to precious metals. Nice try, but in this case you would also be wrong.
Instead, what I am talking about today is knowledge or information. I've been having some interesting thoughts about these two concepts lately, and I thought I might ramble about it a bit here in the #reflections community.
I'm in the fortunate/unfortunate position that I work for a public school district in a relatively small town. It's a good thing because the town is small and therefore the district is small. It's a bad thing because the town is small and therefore the district is small. As you can imagine people in small towns talk.
Actually, people in big towns talk too, there's just less of a chance that what they are talking about is going to get back to the person they are talking about. It will literally make your head spin how much people are in each other's business. I'm fully aware this has probably been going on since the beginning of time, but it's interesting how people's attitudes have shifted over time.
These days, it's almost as if people feel that being in control of the knowledge is a right. Of course, knowledge comes in different categories. You have general knowledge that everyone has a right to, higher knowledge that you have to work for, and then personal knowledge which quite honestly is nobody's business.
There could be more categories of course but the problem is the lines have been blurred between each of those categories these days. Perhaps with the Internet knowledge is so readily available that people think they are entitled to all of it. Even worse, they have the misconception that knowledge or information is theirs to do with as they wish.
In the US, we have a rule called FERPA. It stands for the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Like HIPAA for health professionals, FERPA is meant to protect sensitive information about students. Oddly enough, certain things like their name, date of birth, and address is considered "Directory Information" and while parents have to be alerted if it is shared, districts can share it (they still don't usually).
Then there are the more sensitive pieces of data. Things about a students home life, disability, or other things. Those are protected by FERPA and should only be talked about by people who are directly involved in the education of the student. For example, if a teacher doesn't have that kid in any of their classes, they shouldn't be talking about them.
I'm guessing you probably know how that works out.
@mrsbozz has been a school social worker for over 15 years and confidentiality has always been one of thing things she hangs her hat on. In turn the lack of it in most cases has become a pet peeve of hers.
As I said though, these days it's almost like people feel they have a right to any knowledge or information. Then we also have the cases where information has become weaponized or a currency to be bartered with between individuals. Information they don't necessarily have the right to, but they wield it like a weapon of mass destruction with little thought about the collateral damage.
Knowledge is power indeed...
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for freedom of information, and I know there is a lot of shady stuff that people keep secret, but is there a line? We've had instances in the past where a local news anchor or a school administrator has suddenly taken a job elsewhere. It never fails that social media will be full of people demanding to know the full story.
Again, they think they are entitled to some piece of information that is really none of their business. Maybe it was a personal reason, maybe it was indeed an injustice, but who gets to decide that? Of course, in the case of the school, if kids were in danger, I can see a statement needing to be made, but again, everyone thinks they deserve to know every single detail of every situation.
Do they?
Here's another example. Two kids get in a scuffle on the playground. Both kids had a part in it, so both kids get punished. Parent A doesn't necessarily complain about their kid being punished (actually these days they usually do), but they demand to know how student B was punished. Sorry, but you aren't entitled to that information. In fact, it would be a violation of student B's FERPA rights if we told you.
Obviously, they then take to social media and put the school district on blast for this injustice they feel has been dumped on them.
That's probably a topic for a different post though.
What do you think? Has knowledge or information been weaponized? Has it always been, it's just more obvious now because of social media? Where should the boundaries be and who gets to decide what is acceptable?
I look forward to your comments!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
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I think in many cases it is innocent curiosity, but then we are surrounded by a culture obsessed with conspiracy, so the idea grows that if they (whoever they are) won't tell me what's going on, they must be hiding something. That is the point where some people take things way too far and start making a fuss on FB or whatnot.
I think it has always happened to some degree. We both grew up with the idea of the old women gossips in the neighborhood who just stare out their windows all day and milk everyone they meet for info on everything that is happening with everyone. There were entire episodes of those old 50s and 60s sitcoms that revolved around the local gossip lady trying to demand info that she didn't need to know and then making a fuss about it. Kind of a Proto-Karen.
So that is to say, I think the internet has just amplified something that was already with us.
That said, yeah it is annoying! I deal with it too (and wish I didn't have to).
Good point. I guess it is just one more thing we can blame social media for. I think what bugs me the most about it is the sense of entitlement. Nothing says you get to have all the information no matter how badly you think you do. Sometimes there are things we are never going to know and you just have to accept that.
The problem these days is how easy it is to spread information. You can put something online and it can very hard to get it taken down. I heard Musk was releasing details of some government employees and that's probably not allowed. I'm sure it happens amongst kids as a new form of bullying. My other half works in a school too, so knows the issues.
I have always been very careful about what information I put online about anyone. There are some of my own details that I would not put on the public internet. Of course someone else could find these out and there's the whole issue of 'doxing'. I know it's happened on Hive with some people who don't use their real name on there.
We've had the whole 'right to be forgotten' thing recently and now I see that certain names are blocked in ChatGPT. Names are not generally unique, so it opens up all sorts of issues. The internet is certainly a can of worms...
That's a really good point. It is easy to spread stuff these days and I am sure that contributes to it. I don't reveal everything about myself either, but if someone was determined, I am sure they could figure it out. It's just one of those things I guess.
I think it's more noticeable now because of social media. You have more information, ideas and alternatives then watching the news at night or listing to the radio back in the day for your presidential updates. You are also finding out that many of the things you have been told were false, made up or they where hidden and you start to see the wild horrors your government and others do.
I also think however is people need to start taking responsibility for themselves and stop relying on government for things like health care, getting out of debt, food and yada yada. If people worked more within their communities and built and supported their communities we would all be far better off and at least some powers would be restored to the people instead of pushed into government.
What I do love the internet for is easy access to information that's helpful. Things like how to start growing your own garden, a bit of weather planning, wood working on youtube videos, how to fix things. All of those things are crazy powerful and so helpful and if more people focused their time on those things you'd be surprised with how much power you have in yourself without raising any type of aggressive behavior like revolution, civil war etc.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I use the Internet for as well. I'm not sure I even trust the people who are supposedly exposing lies. They are just as likely to be lying themselves. Everyone has an agenda and the only person it benefits is usually themselves.
I actually was in such a situation as parent A and issued the same demand. The point is: My seven year old son was not concerned about his punishment, he felt and said so, that he did something wrong and there were consequences. But he did not see/hear if stundent B got any punishment. In his mind B therefore did not get any punishment at all and that seemed unfair. The most easy way to get forward in this conversation is to tell him what happened to B. But I do not know. And talking to other parents while on playdates I get told similar problems, the kids don't recognize the "fairnes" of the system if they don't recognize what happens to other offenders. In their mind all the other kids may do forbidden things while not getting punished. The kids of course also lie to each other "I did not get any punishment at all"
We as parents can only say "that kid is lying, of course they got punished" but that's where the conversation ends and the question "What punishment did they get then, eh?" can not be answered.
I'd think you just have to trust that the school handled it in the best way possible. It's not like we come to work every day trying to think of how we can screw people over. That's the politicians job. Now, that doesn't mean the parents of the other kid gave them appropriate punishment on their end. People are weird these days. Some of them just don't care about stuff like that I guess. You gotta have faith in the system though.
Thank you for the reminder.
It's just so much more work to teach the young ones to have faith when there are signs to the contrary. And so much easier to go along with the crowd, demanding information.
I totally understand. I still think it's important to instill that trust in them even if most of the time it ends up being shattered. I'd still rather they be optimistic than pessimistic. It's definitely not an easy job, especially when everyone has a different opinion of what the goal should look like.
Will President Trump reconsider and acknowledge?
I hope he holds to his rhetoric, but past experience has taught us we can't really trust anything he says.
!pimp
Man.. I thought this post was going in a different direction. No silver talk! lol. I know I told you before, but my wife is a School Psychologist so I get all that you are saying and yes she is just like your wife.. confidential to a fault. I'm her therapist when she gets home, so all is good.
Haha, that is good. They get dumped in a lot, so they need someone to vent to as well!