We are back in race season. Jay raced in a Pro 1, 2, 3 race. It was a great race. One guy jumped off the front right from the start, and won. Otherwise, it was a good, fast race. Plus, there were some amazing pro riders.One of my favorite things about the race season is the road trips. Not because I like being in the car, but Jay and I have some of our best conversations sitting in the car. We can't be busy with other things, or distracted. It's just us. Today we talked a lot about Egypt and Twitter. I bring the political side, and he brings the tech side. I also read a fascinating article in Foreign Affairs; about the role of social media in political uprisings. Interesting enough it was written in Nov/Dec of 2010 lloooonnnggg before the recent events in the Middle East. One of his points was the role the US can and should have not in creating more was to circumvent closed countries getting access to the internet, but rather encouraging the broad flourishing of the social sector. Encouraging open public debate, because as they argue, most closed countries don't notice when the internet shuts down, but they do notice when the things they use innocently everyday are taken away. The Google Executive who was arrested and released in Egypt last week said exactly the same thing. The worst thing Egypt did was shut down Facebook. All of a sudden they had the whole country up in arms and aware of just how weak and afraid they were. The best thing we can do across the globe is to encourage public debate, honest use of technology, and access to information.
Until next weekend.
1 comment:
Wow I always get amazed at how smart you are in keeping up with what is going on around the world. that is pretty crazy that people in Egypt got cut off from facebook. Pretty crazy how popular facebook is in all these different countries. Here in my town- it isn't well known yet... but who knows in a few months. I love reading your blogs. Keep writing!
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