9th March 2011
The Social Network, the End of Intimacy, and the Birth of Hacker Sensibility
“Think about the person closest to you and the connection that you have. Feel the sense of familiarity and trust. Think of the wonderful experiences your intimacy has enabled. But now imagine this intimacy is torn away. Their eyes intimate indifference. You’re just one of the billions of people to whom they could possibly devote their time. There is nothing that defines your shared connection and makes it stand apart. You’re just the tag end of an economic calculation; a move in a game that will likely never end.
What if this could happen? What if it was already beginning to happen? What if intimacy is just a mode of behaviour that depends upon a certain kind of societal superstructure and technological underpinning? What if intimacy itself could be annihilated by a revolution occurring at the level of that superstructure?
