Eventually I came to my senses because I realized most people don't want to ACTUALLY do good to benefit the world. Even the most bleedingest of bleedingestestest (I'm having fun, I know it's not a word) liberal tends toward self interest (like the old chestnut about the environmentalist who flew a private plane to multiple stops around the world to his live rock-star events so he could be there in person to show his commitment to things like decreasing carbon emissions, despite the fact that the internet he invented allows people to be everywhere at once).
People, even with the best of intentions, tend towards self-interest. Myself included. Sometimes self-interest is important. It's the instinct that nurtures intellect, for instance. It's the voice that says "I want to learn this, work on creating something from this, and then go do something with it!". It's what you choose to do with your final product (be it a physical or intellectual product) that ultimately defines the product and your work. Was it used to benefit people? Was it a product built strictly for monetary gain? Was it more harmful than useful? Could it have been useful and not harmful if approached from a different angle? Can you correct an error, and would you if it meant making less money while benefiting more people? Were you just trying to be popular? In the end, the kernel of ideas come from self-interest. A PERSONAL desire to do/make something you (if no one else) deems important. Ina loose way, this goes back to context. But I digress.
One thing I was always in conflict about with libertarianism (aside from the way it seems to be a sort of political-philosophical magnet for racists, unfortunately***) was the near-paranoid rumblings about surveillance by the government. In general, I was always kind of on the fence with "fear of big brother" talk from everyone. Before the now near-ubiquitous streaming devices and services were available, my main argument against fear of a federal or global big brother entity was simply logistics: There was simply no way to have cameras and other recording devices every where recording everything at once.. Attached to that (and still somewhat relevant to current discussion) is that...who's going to watch/listen to/read all the data? It never fully added up for me, so I never really took the whole "fear of surveillance" culture (libertarian, socialist, or whatever) very seriously.
Today, we have so many streaming services and devices and inter-personal connections that it's almost (not fully) true that we are, in essence, living in a "big brother" society. It's almost impossible to go somewhere and NOT see someone taking a picture or video that could potentially be seen by thousands.. Even the most mundane things. get 1000 views and a few comments. It's not like a kitten is unusual, and they're almost universally cute, but the right kitten at the right time can be a viral sensation, replete with articles written about it and a possible talk show appearance tour..
That's just kittens. Now, we also stream the fight in the store or the kid throwing puppies in the river or individual viewpoints during a riot or multiple angles of a police shooting and its aftermath. Racist rhetoric is exposed hourly. One of my favourite youtube videos is one from Russell Brand, where he's talking to some British racist skinheads in a bar, and basically lets them expose themselves for what they are. And then they got mad when he pointed out what they had just said. And the thing was, the racist admitted he signed a waiver to have everything shown as-is, no edits. The racist, in demeanour, reminded me exact type of person who would denounce and create slogans and throw rocks at a building over the perceived threat of government surveillance.. And yet, more often than not, these types of people are exactly the ones transmitting their ideologies and parties and general hate for everyone to see, and they're getting caught when they act out violently. And it's all voluntarily. Even the getting caught part. By using and buying products that allow voluntary streaming/surveillance, you're actively enabling the proliferation of surveillance culture. So even when you're getting caught on camera killing someone or beating someone or harassing someone based on race/gender/philosophy, you're essentially getting caught by a system you voted for with your dollar.. It works for the hoodrat who used to throw stones to break the police surveillance cam and now tapes his friend robbing someone or tapes a hand-to-hand and wonders why they got caught after they posted it to a youtube or something.
And I'm saying WE, the citizens, chose this. The "big brother" culture wasn't hoisted on our shoulders, we put it there..
The funny thing is, it works. I personally LIKE that we seemed to have chosen this path by our own volition. Look at how many things (good and bad) are being exposed. Locally, nationally, globally...we're forced to look at ourselves in a mirror and say "This is who we are, as a human race. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful...this is who we are." And I think it's making the conversation about equality and justice and what it means to be a human on earth more...substantial. It was easy to hear some wild story about how the gangs were killing everybody in the inner city. But now we see, sometimes it's not the gangs. Sometimes it's the cops. Sometimes it's a civilian, and the cops stop the civilian. One cop at a riot might throw tear gas while the other might shed a tear when a protester asks "Why are you doing this?".
I think, before the advent of mass-consumerist streaming, it was easier to swallow stereotypes and lies and cover-ups. It made the conversation about equality and justice more superficial because there was no evidence from the people being stereotyped that the generalizations (and marginalization) wasn't wrong. It was easier to be ignorant and dismiss lack of justice or equality as something that didn't exist.
Like I said before, we had to look kin the mirror. And we're still figuring out what we're looking at. Mass streaming/surveillance and analysis of materials on a purely voluntary basis is still young. We're still looking at this big, global body and we're still, by way of metaphor, trying to figure out which blemishes we can live with, if we need to go on a diet, if that bump is a pimple or a tumor...
We've already accepted self-surveillance and we're loving it, as a global culture. Now we have to use this idea to the best possible benefit for the progression of our human society. This is where we say "Ok, let's study human behaviour and start working on ways to address groups and individuals and their needs and psychology and living conditions and then start working on some real structures to create the best possible outcome for the most amount of people". If you watch online videos, you might see an inordinate amount of people spend time and money on trying to be entertaining and/or famous. Some want to indifferently report on other peoples goings-ons. Some want to change things. Some people actually share ideas that will benefit humankind. Some people take full advantage of what's available with others in mind, and some don't.
In the end, I think this is a trend we'll see become the norm: the culture that voluntarily shows it's good and bad points to each and every one of us, whether we live in rural areas or urban areas. Ignorance will no longer be an option, and I just can't find anything wrong with that. Especially not since we, the people, chose to impose that responsibility on ourselves by making the streaming-self-surveillance culture so ubiquitous by voluntary means, with our own cash and resources.. I, personally, find it to be a wonderful, exciting, maybe even beautiful thing. I'm very excited and interested to see how it all plays out and if people will start waking up to their own ignorance in larger amounts and at faster rates.
***- The racism thing is still the single biggest thing that keeps me from identifying as even an ideological libertarian. The one big thing that always drew me to libertarianism at its most ideological was the implied LACK of racism or xenophobia or homophobia or any other -phobia or -ism one could think of. I always assumed that was implied, but I was wrong about that, at least in terms of how libertarianism is used in practice as opposed to the fluffy and pure ideological musings of philosophy and theory.
I've always disliked the "extreme capitalism" excesses of Libertarianism because it still centralizes money, which is exactly what a free market is supposed to protect against. I don't see much difference between money being centralized in a few government hands and money being centralized in the hands of a few extreme capitalists. I think it's unfortunate that the "volunteerism" aspect of libertarianism is often completely ignored by people who claim to have libertarian beliefs. Volunteerism is meant to include the concept of those with money donating it towards societies benefit, not power over other people.
Truly, the biggest difference between pure, ideological socialism (PIS) and pure, ideological libertarianism (PIL) is the freedom to choose how you reinvest your money into society.. PIS has the government choose where every cent goes, with out much concern for local needs; one model for all. PIL has individuals choose how every cent of theirs is reinvested into their local community (or a larger community, if they so wish). obviously, in either system, there will be people with more... persuasive power than others.
Anyway...I've said it before, on this blog and other places, that neither PIL or PIS are attainable. In my opinion the best we can do is experiment with different hybrid forms of political philosophies & practices until we can find the best fit that creates an equal opportunity for any and every body to have a stable, safe (and hopefully happy) life at the expense of no other person.