Criticism of collectivism comes from liberal individualists, such as classical liberals, libertarians and individualist anarchists. Perhaps the most notable modern criticism of economic collectivism is the one put forward by Friedrich Hayek in his book The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944.
Ludwig von Mises wrote:
On the other hand, the application of the basic ideas of collectivism cannot result in anything but social disintegration and the perpetuation of armed conflict. It is true that every variety of collectivism promises eternal peace, starting with the day of its own decisive victory and the final overthrow and extermination of all other ideologies and their supporters.
As soon as a faction has succeeded in winning the support of the majority of citizens, and thereby attained control of the government machine, it is free to deny to the minority all those democratic rights by means of which it itself has previously carried on its own struggle for supremacy.
"Throughout history, no tyrant ever rose to power except on the claim of representing the 'common good.'" - Ayn Rand mslnk.bz/W4IwPy
Because I recently changed my Facebook profile policy to a more open model of outreach, I am getting a lot more interaction with my personal Facebook posts than I have in the recent past. I am excited to be using Facebook in this way to meet more new people with whom I may share common ground.
In adopting this more liberal policy, I am meeting lots of folks of which I know little, and that’s what this is all about. “Hello, nice to meet you!”
Unfortunately, when mixing in these unknowns, I am finding a few people who, out of habit, or because of current cultural norms, think that it is ok to be insulting to either myself or to my friends whom are interacting with these posts.
It’s not.
I just need it to be known to everyone who interacts with me here or elsewhere on the internets, that I have a zero-tolerance policy towards online bullying. My practice is simple: If you want to argue or debate, I’m fine with that. Bring your facts, and try to leave the logical fallacies behind.
However, any time someone gets abusive, I’m done. That person’s post will be removed without comment, and I will block them from further interactions. And if they are threatening in any way, they’ll be reported.
I’m not interested in the drama, and I know that what these people really want is attention, so I don’t give them any. Don’t feed the trolls, as they say, or they’ll keep coming back for more.
And I’d just like to take a moment here to say how incredibly foolish it is to insult and intentionally alienate another person, especially an online stranger. You don’t know anything about what they are capable of, or who they know, or what kind of power they might have to be retributive.
Some people will become vindictive over very small things. Why would you want to invite that karmic negativity into your life? Far too many have gotten into violent fights or long-lasting feuds because somebody thought it was cute to get in a good zinger on Facebook. What a waste of time and energy.
It’s pretty simple. You get back what you put out there.
Everyone needs to understand that meanness is weakness. It takes a lot more personal strength and self-esteem to be nice and courteous to others, and the pay-offs in life are great when we treat people kindly.
And I’d like to say one more thing about this from a strictly personal angle:
I was bullied in school to the point where I dropped out of high school during my first year. To this day, I can still feel the patterns of fear in my mind and body that were created during that time. I’m still rewriting that programming, if you will.
It’s a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder, in that I can become physically ill just because someone is being mean. I didn’t talk about this during the majority of my life, because I thought to be on the receiving end of bullying meant that I was weak. But now I see that to hide it and not talk about it — that’s what is weak. To speak out against it and take a stand, that is as strong as it gets.
Hate is the wrong paradigm for the future of our species. And I ask you — if you agree with me — that you ‘like’ this post or that you reshare it somewhere where others too can read it and learn.
#Tweetstock Reminded Me That Developing an Authentic Voice is Key for Any Social Media
In our use of social media, we have lots of choices to make, and one of the most important is the type of voice we develop. Will it be corporate or personal, serious or playful? Angry, political, religious, agnostic, positive, negative, or neutral? Nice or mean, smart or ... not? It is a choice we make when we begin to speak for ourselves or a brand, but it is also a developmental process that never ends, and it is reflected every single time we post something for an online audience, whether it be a blog, Facebook update, or tweet. Through that voice, we create in the minds of our audience an evolving, yet enduring, impression of who we are are and what we are about. It's a persona. And this matters a whole lot.
This last week I had the pleasure, honor, and privilege of being invited to make a presentation at Tweetstock 007 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. This is more of a "rock show" for social media enthusiasts, than it is a conference, in my feeling. Very professional, but also, not stiff. I like this. For me, the opportunity of being able to take in social media presentations and be exposed to the thoughts of expert Internet marketing professionals from all walks of life, is an experience rife with lessons in allowing myself to be authentic, genuine, and candid. ...
Vulnerable, even.
So many brilliant, experienced, and accomplished people at #Tweetstock007. For me, its like a giant inoculation of humility.
— @mouselink (@mouselink) April 12, 2012
This theme of authenticity first began to resonate for me during the
"She Said"
panel, composed of @KathyBuckworth, @juliecole, @stratfest, @juliarosien, and @KarenSD. When the discussion of
voice
and its tone came up, there were questions like, In your use of social media, do you always put your best face forward? Are you consistently smiling, or do you allow yourself to complain? Do you swear? How do you define how to conduct yourself? And for social media professionals, How does your voice change on the different accounts for which you post?
The big answer to these questions, of course, is it all depends. But let me back up a bit.
The night before the conference, I made the drive up to Ontario from Ithaca, New York. Through my unyielding stubbornness to sight-see along the way, I managed to turn a 4-5 hour drive into a 7-8 hour trip. Although it was a beautiful evening for a drive, as soon as I got into Canada, I started having trouble with my wireless connectivity. Namely, the GPS mapping in my phone stopped working because I did not have international data roaming turned on. This meant I had to guess on the next freeway exit from memory -- rather than from looking at a map -- and I guessed wrong. Sitting in a Tim Horton's parking lot, I got my map working again, and I made it safely to the Comfort Inn around 11 p.m. After a goodnight call to my family, I tried to get some quick sleep. I knew the presentation I'd be giving the next afternoon still needed additional work, and I was planning to get up early.
At 4am, I brewed some coffee, and got to work. The Internet access in the hotel was fast and totally solid, and I was able to make great progress on the Prezi I was creating, my eyes on the clock the entire time. By 7:45, I had the visual structure of my talk all solidified, but I still needed to embed the photos and videos, which were absolutely key to the topic of "phoneography" I would be discussing. I thought I'd have time to embed them during lunch, but I had some Pinterest boards set up here, here, and here to display them, just in case I couldn't find the time.
My restored GPS got me to the Galaxy Cinemas around 8am, which was perfect. I wanted to be at the show early to check out the venue.
Tiltshift phoneography, Tweetstock 007, ala stage point-of-view, via
Instagram
Trevor, Kevin, Neal, Adam, Josh, and so many more of the Tweetstock crew made me feel welcome, and they were all extremely nice and helpful. Right away, Trevor wanted to address any technical requirements I needed for my Prezi, and he was quick to discourage me from relying too heavily on the show's wi-fi access. With hundreds of social media aficionados tweeting and doing their Internet thing, all at the same time, I wouldn't want to be standing in front of an audience waiting for any media to load during my show.
He wasn't kidding. During the next hour I tried repeatedly to get on the Internet by any and all means possible. My Windows 7 laptop would not connect to the local wi-fi, or it would stop seeing the network entirely. My personal hotspot via my iPhone was also struggling laboriously, and it's normally a totally solid backup anywhere there's 3G. I asked Josh, who had been helping me, "Have you ever seen Star Trek: Yoyager?" I told him, "I feel a little like Seven of Nine when she first gets disconnected from The Borg's hive mind: 'The voices! I can't hear the voices.'"
As it was, I would not be able to use my Pinterest boards as a backup for the media I wanted to share. Neither would I be able to finish editing my Prezi here at the venue, or even be able to transfer the presentation to the crew for the show.
Feel like I've been wrestling with so many technical challenges today. It always works fine until you leave the house/office.;-p
— @mouselink (@mouselink) April 12, 2012
It then became clear to me that the only way I'd be able to finish my presentation would be to go back to my hotel and use the Internet there. I did not like the idea of missing the beginning of the conference, but it seemed to be the only thing I could do. I drove off around 9:30 a.m.
I don't want to bore you with too many technical details. An hour-and-a-half back on the Internet in my room meant that I was able to download all the pictures and videos I wanted to talk about, and that I could put everything I needed for the formerly cloud-based Prezi onto a flash drive. This way I could simply hand it physically to the tech crew. They worked with me on the presentation through lunch, checking and double-checking that everything worked right.
Just after this, the "He Said" panel (@thesaleslion, @RLavigne42, @cutegecko, and @kitestring) temporarily brought me back out of my technical fog of war, and got me thinking about this concept of an authentic voice again. I really liked how Marcus Sheridan emphasized that the best way to develop your social media skills is to just start creating content, that the betterment of that content and your voice is a part of the process. In a similar vane, Robert Lavigne admitted that the way in which he did his earliest video blogs involved him literally hiding behind glasses and under a bandana.
The giant projection screen, behind the "He Said" panel, via
Instagram
The discussion got me thinking again that when we allow ourselves to be genuine, that the telling of our story can be so much more compelling for our audience. But more about that in a minute. It was finally time for me to go up.
It being the middle of the afternoon, I didn't know if the audience would have low energy and need some perking up, so I planned to do two things to stir everyone a bit: I'd take a picture of the group from the stage POV, and have them all say, "Tweestock!" instead of "cheese." But as I was doing so, the crew was having trouble getting my Prezi on screen, even though we had just tested it successfully an hour before. At that moment, Trevor came to the rescue, and sent the audience to break so that we could get the presentation working again, but in the process, I felt awkward because I obviously didn't want to go through the same opening twice.
After break, we started again, and my Prezi was finally rolling. I was happy with the beginning of the show, as it went pretty much as I had planned. However, after I got through the introductory comments and into the topical matter, I began to feel distracted and disoriented.
With my Prezi right behind me on a gigantic screen, and no computer in front of me, I felt like I was flying blind. I couldn't see my presentation without craning my neck around, and even when I did that, it didn't help much. I realized that in 20 years of teaching computer tech in the classroom, and even in the last few years of building Prezi "zooming" presentations, that I had never been in this situation before. I had always had a computer in front of me when presenting a topic.
This screwed up my tempo and rhythm. If I had been presenting from PowerPoint, I don't think the setup would have affected me as much, but for an unpracticed Prezi, it felt catastrophic. I didn't want a slow pace for this talk, and much to my disappointment, that's exactly what I put out there.
Afterwards, I tried to console myself. This was only the second time I had ever spoken at a conference, and it was the largest audience I had been in front of since college. I'm a newbie in those respects, and I'm *supposed to* have plenty to learn, right? Still, I went back to my room after the afternoon had ended, and I felt drained, when I normally would have felt inspired. Had I given myself more time to prepare, had I embedded all this media and saved the Prezi for offline use, had I practiced more ... then I might have realized before the show that I needed a stage-facing screen in order to stay oriented. I could have had the forethought to have requested this. But now I had learned.
#Tweetstock007: Thinking of blogging along the lines of, "If you like me when I suck, then you'll really dig it when I'm actually good."
— @mouselink (@mouselink) April 13, 2012
I drove over to the Brantford Casino for the Tweetstock after-party, and immediately everyone was very friendly and positive with whom I had a chance to speak. Many were complimentary of my presentation, and I started to feel a little better. I had a chance to talk with Karen Schulman Dupuis (@KarenSD) at length about some of the themes of the day as I saw them.
One of the questions regarding the idea of voice that kept coming back to both of us was the extent to which a social media user should allow their own flaws to show. Do you let yourself complain? Or do you allow your audience to know that you are tired, or discouraged, or feeling uncertain about yourself?
If you choose to hide your flaws, an inherent problem arises, and that is, sooner or later you're going to slip up and be found out. Hide something now, and you'll be forever hiding it. But be transparent now, and you'll be making things a whole lot easier for yourself in the long run.
In this vein, I chose to write candidly about the technical problems I experienced during this conference, not because of a desire to complain in any way or fish for compliments, but because I wanted to share my feelings of being frustrated, uncomfortable, and discouraged. I know what I'm capable of in addressing an audience, and I fell far short of my potential that day.
In any good story, the protagonist has something to learn, and he is never at his best when the narrative begins. That is a big reason why we pay attention. We root for the hero because we identify with those flaws, in the same way that we want to overcome our own weaknesses and improve ourselves. A person's ability to learn and improve is part of what compels us to admire their work.
The bravest thing you can do is choose to be vulnerable. ~KSD #TEDxWaterloo
— Karen SchulmanDupuis (@karensd) March 21, 2012
Social media also tells a story, and we are all the heroes of our own action adventures. Why would we ever want to hide that learning process from our audience? It's a key element of what makes the adventure compelling, and it may be the core reason anyone is interested in following us. I had a Twitter follower one day tell me something that I've never forgotten. She said, "You're not like other so-called social media experts. You actually get depressed or talk about what you're struggling with. Matteo, that is why I keep following you."
There are many different kinds of brands. Whether you represent company interests, or you are a brand unto yourself, you have to decide what your voice is going to be. Consider also that we're entering the point in our technological evolution during which it's becoming more and more difficult to hide anything. I believe this is a good thing for both corporations and governments alike. And I think it will be good for all our own stories, if we allow it.
At Tweetstock 007 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, I could have knocked everybody's socks off, but I didn't.
All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. ... AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES.
If I ever learn to stop judging people, I know I'm gonna be much happier.
Brian Codd: You're judging yourself, though ;) Thursday at 11pm
Morgan Flach: Me too! I've been thinking a lot about this the last few days. Thursday at 11pm
Louis Johnson: I'm not so sure judging is bad, especially if it's an honest evaluation. It doesn't mean that you have to spell out every judgment to everyone. Yesterday at 8am
Monroe Payne Photography: We all have a series of beliefs and life experiences. To deny them in our interactions with others is to deny ourselves. Awareness of our judging others is key. Is it reasonable or not? Are we protecting ourselves, our businesses and families? Judging is justified. If we are applying irrational prejudices, it is not. Just be aware, but do not deny who you are. Yesterday at 8am
Abby Pender: It human nature dude.... Just gotta find the balance and try not to affect ohers with negative vibes. Be true but be kind....not every judgment we make needs to be aired....that's how I judge it anyway. Lol Yesterday at 9am
mouselink @ Monroe Payne Photography: These are great comments. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. 4 hours ago
mouselink @ Morgan Flach: tell me what you've been thinking? 4 hours ago
mouselink @ Brian Codd: :) 4 hours ago
mouselink @ Louis Johnson: I agree with you completely. "Judge" is a difficult word. It means different things to different people. There is a range of meanings from simply "evaluate" down to "morally condemn" on the opposite end of the spectrum. 2 seconds ago
mouselink @ Louis Johnson: I am really speaking more of negative thought patterns of dwelling on perceived wrongdoing. I don't think it's useful, and there are a couple of things I believe in intellectually that are in conflict with those thoughts. 2 seconds ago
mouselink @ Louis Johnson: I used to have a sign on my door in my last house, so when I would leave home it would be my first thought as I entered the world, a paraphrase from my days as an Xian. It said, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." 2 seconds ago
mouselink @ Abby Pender: I thank you for your post. My last three comments are also in response to what you said. 2 seconds ago
Help launch a #TwitterBOMB by tweeting for one hour at 9pm EST / 6pm PST about the National Defense Authorization Act using the hashtag #NDAA. Let's work together to trend #NDAA so we can raise awareness about the bill. NDAA passed through Senate with a 93-7 vote, even though provisions in this legislation allow the military to hold Americans indefinitely, without filing charges, and without a trial. All Americans should know their rights to a warrant, lawyer, etc. are being voted away. (Taken with instagram)
Congratulations, Facebook, you've pushed me to roll back my usage even more. Now that you've added your "ticker," showing me a million inconsequential actions that I'm not interested in seeing, the only way I can hide it is to hide the sidebar entirely, effectively ruining my chat experience. Oh well, I suppose I can just use Google for that too.
