A scarier world, or just more connected?


These are apocalyptic times. My youngest daughter and I were talking the other day about whether this nightmare series of international disasters is a harbinger of the end of days, or if it just feels that way now that everybody has a video camera.
She's 26, and asked me if the world felt like this -like it was coming apart at the seams -when I was her age. If it was, I wasn't aware of it.
Then again, there was no Internet pouring out a steady stream of horrifying images from around the world back then. Not many citizens had video capability, unlike today when almost anyone with a cellphone can capture catastrophes as they happen. Nor were there global platforms like YouTube, or the video appetites of 24hour TV news channels.
I'm as captivated by it as anyone, and grateful for the truths that unedited, amateur video can bring to the human conversation. Would Robert Dziekanski's death in the Vancouver airport even be public knowledge had it not been for the video footage of passerby Paul Pritchard?
But I do suspect that the sheer volume of on-the-spot video footage that now pours out after every global disaster, every terrible event, ramps up apocalypse anxiety.
My generation's apocalypse anxiety centred on the imminent threat of nuclear war. I remember listening in horror to news stories about how we were now one minute to midnight on some metaphorical nuclear-risk clock they were always talking about in those years, and feeling so powerless to do anything but worry.
The threat of nuclear war was a pretty intangible fear for a 20-something Courtenay girl, and that intangibility was probably part of what made it so frightening.
But there's nothing intangible about what's going on in Japan right now. It's all there, from whatever angle you'd care to look at it -tens of thousands of video minutes documenting everything about the terrible series of events hammering the people of Japan.
It's no use wondering whether all that video is a good or bad thing. It is what it is, for better or worse. There's no turning back from this global reality TV show we now all star in.
On the upside, we're moved more deeply by video imagery. It puts us more directly in the moment. It makes you feel a distant country's heartwrenching disaster much more personally, in ways that I'm sure must be very helpful in mobilizing an international response and raising funds for disaster relief.
But the horror is that much more personal, as well, now that video is the tool of the common people.
In days gone by, the chance was slim to none that a news crew would happen to be on hand at the very moment that a tsunami struck. Today, there are "news crews" anywhere there's a person with a cellphone -and there are five billion cellphones out there.
It certainly makes the world a more connected place. Unfortunately, it can also make it feel as if more and more really bad things are happening.
I read an interview the other day with a scientist who was trying to soothe the collective psyche by noting there's really nothing exceptional going on in the world right now. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods -they're just part of the way things work here on Earth.
I'll leave the experts to debate that. But whether this is end of days or just a bumpy patch, we've never before had such real-time, round-the-clock access to the intimate details of the world's natural disasters -to its wars, its uprisings, its suffering and triumphs. These days, you know it's all on video somewhere.
I don't know what it means. But it changes the experience. I feel for the young people, living in a time when there's simply no escaping the brutal truths of the world.
I hope they come out of it as better global citizens. At this stage, it's too soon to tell how the video age will actually shape us, or whether it will take us to new heights of empathy or merely chronic anxiety.
The truth hurts. And with cameras trained on virtually every misery of the world and footage online minutes later, there's just so much more of it to see.

Great event coming up April 30 - Family Connect, a version of the Project Connect event I've done for the street community these past three years, but this time with a focus on the region's poorest families.

 

Family Connect co-ordinator Mary Gidney could really use some help collecting donations of family items to be handed out to participants that day (they're expecting to see 700 people there, and kids of all ages). 

So if you and your co-workers, book-club friends, running group or whoever would like to take on a little side-project, how about a little collection drive for some of the following items?

If you can help out in any way, contact Mary at mgidney@shaw.ca. The event is sponsored by the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness in conjunction with Burnside Gorge Community Association and the Victoria Native Friendship Centre.

• 400 packages of diapers, all sizes
•  100 packages of baby wipes
•   100 diaper cream
•  600 tubes of toothpaste
•  400 toothbrushes (all ages)
•  300 tubes of sunscreen
•   200 boxes of band aids
•   500 bars of soap
•   500 bottles hand-sanitizer
•   700 deodorant
•   600 razors
•   300 boxes of feminine hygiene products
•   100 packages of adult bladder control products
•   300 small toys (cars, yoyos, jump ropes, stuffed animals, playing cards
•   300 school supply items (crayons, markers, notebooks, art supplies)
•    700 bottles of shampoo
•    400 bottles of conditioner
•    200 bottles of dish soap
•   400 packages of toilet paper (individually wrapped if possible)

Just in case you haven't had enough of the Japanese quake/tsunami images yet, here's an amazing video clip from  the moment the tsunami hit. Grim reminder of the power of the ocean. 

Who will you trust in the wild-west information age?

I’ve been doing bits of some work over the last year for a tough little on-line taskmaster called Demand Media. It’s kind of like working at a digital factory, with writers labouring for a few bucks per piece doing what Demand calls “service journalism.”

The work has been enlightening.

The role of a Demand writer is to find answers on-line for the many strange questions people ask in Internet searches.  I figured I’d be a natural fit for the work after all these years in journalism.

But it’s been much more challenging than I anticipated. In particular, I’ve come to see how difficult it is to assess your sources of information when the only place you can look is on-line.

I suspect that’s something we all need to think about more.

Traditional media are no longer the dominant source for news. A 2010 survey on the CNN Tech site found 61 per cent of Americans report getting at least some of their news on-line, compared to just 54 per  cent who cite newspaper and radio as their regular sources.

Demand Media is rightly picky about sources. The company gets paid to provide answers for sites like eHow, so it’s pretty firm with its writers on the need to get things right.

You don’t want writers taking a best-guess approach when writing about how to import moose antlers to the U.S. from Canada, for instance. You don’t want them relying on user blogs or company advertising for assessing the effectiveness of armillatox as a cure for honey fungus. (Be prepared to research many obscure topics if you’re writing for Demand.)

What Demand needs - and really, what we all need - are legitimate, unbiased sources of information. The Internet is an amazing place, and a skilled on-line searcher can get much closer to “truth” now than has ever been the case before. But it truly is the Wild West out there.

If this is the future, we’re going to need new ways to gauge who to trust for the things that matter. With the Demand experience fresh in my mind, here’s what I’ve found to be important:

 Find the original source. When you come across a report being cited or an excerpt quoted, do another search using more specific terms and make your way back to the site where the original material is posted. Second-hand sources (including the traditional media) can miss context and nuance, not to mention get the facts wrong.

Know whose views are being presented. Most Web sites will have some version of “About Us” on their home page. Read it. If you can find an annual report, read that, too.

To take the measure of a source, you need to know who’s talking and what kind of a stake they’ve got in the issue.  You need to know who sits on the board of directors, who pays the bills, who calls the shots. It all matters.

Know your personal criteria for a “trustworthy” Web site. You don’t want to have to second-guess everything you find on-line. What sources do you think you can generally trust?

For the most part, I trust government sites for basic information (like rules around moose-antler importation). I trust their statistics but not always their conclusions, and take with a grain of salt any press release quoting a politician. I trust industry sites for basic product information and sector reports. 

I rely on the sites of traditional media for much of my day-to-day news. But when I’m doing the Demand Media work or research for my column, I view them more as a jumping-off point and look for secondary sources as well.

Trust the wisdom of crowds - to a point. Wikipedia is verboten as a Demand source, but for the most part the “people’s encyclopedia” is strikingly accurate for everyday use. Still, I’d recommend a secondary source. And while I love user-review sites like TripAdvisor and the Internet Movie Database, that’s not to say I’d plan a travel holiday or a movie night solely on the information I find there.

As for blogs, treat them like the random musings that they are unless you absolutely know otherwise.

Keep an open mind. The dangerously seductive quality of the Internet is that it channels you toward information and viewpoints that fit with your own beliefs. For the sake of personal growth, societal tolerance and rational decision-making, watch out for that. Make a point of visiting some credible sites that challenge your thinking.

Big Society, or small government?

*I'm gone after this for a couple of weeks - back blogging March 12

 Britain’s “Big Society” initiative has been showing up as a story line in Canadian media in recent weeks.

Not surprising, really. Our federal and provincial governments are promoting the same principles that British Prime Minister David Cameron is putting forward in his Big Society vision.  

He calls it a Big Society and we call it social entrepreneurship, but the goals are the same: More social enterprise; more collective responsibility for societal ills; more use of the tools of capitalism to fund social care. Canada is suddenly awash in task forces, strategies and policy debate related to social innovation, including a new high-profile advisory committee in B.C.

I like much of what’s being talked about. I’m all for innovation, and for a better way of funding community services if it gets us out of the uncertain, short-term, destructive and inefficient process we’ve got now.

But I can’t shake a certain unease. It feels to me like two very different kinds of dreamers are coming together under the banner of “social enterprise.” And it’s my experience that bad things can happen when that’s the case.

Dear reader, social enterprise is not a particularly compelling column topic. I’ve already stopped and started dozens of times in writing this, struggling for a better turn of phrase to see if I can keep you reading for another paragraph or two.

It has taken me three hard months of really working it just to get the first inkling of what’s being talked about, and why. So I feel your pain (or boredom). But when a Big New Idea suddenly takes hold across the western world, we’d best pay attention even when it makes our heads hurt to think about it.

Social innovation in the current context has emerged from two distinctly different challenges.

One centres around frustrated non-profit agencies exhausted by years of starvation budgets, an absence of consistent, effective policy, and wrong-headed government rules restricting how the agencies can generate and use money.

They see the social problems around them and want to be able to use the tools of business to create their own sources of revenue for addressing them. They want to be able to get a loan just like any other business so they can improve their services. In Canada, neither are possible in the current system.

The other involves modern-day governments from ideologies that favour lower taxes and less service. They seem genuinely baffled that poverty and social ills have increased on their watch, but appear completely unwilling to consider that their governance has had a role in that.

They seem to have concluded that the problem is in our communities. We’ve become too reliant on government to fix our problems. Big Society-type initiatives aim to set things right without government having to foot the bill for it.

The kinds of changes being contemplated are non-threatening and sensible on the surface. In B.C., for instance, we’re talking about encouraging philanthropic foundations to become lending banks for non-profits, and establishing hybrid companies that combine the best of business and social-enterprise practice.

That would let non-profits seek investors to help them launch businesses supporting their work. It would leave them less vulnerable to the whims of government, and free to shape their services based on client needs instead of the dictates of funders.

The ideas aren’t new. Neither are the problems, a fact that perhaps explains some of my suspicion. What has prompted this international outburst of government enthusiasm at this particular time?

It’s striking how similar the language is in the UK, Canada and the U.S. right now around these issues. In mere months, the themes of Cameron’s Big Society have become the darlings of Canadian and U.S. governments, and the impetus for a slew of new “partnerships” between governments and non-profits charged with figuring it all out.

Have governments suddenly awoken to what a jewel they have in the non-profit sector?  Or is this about the opportunity to shrink government funding even further, saddling beleaguered communities with even more of the work of social care that governments once provided?

Intent is everything. Wonderful to see the lion suddenly eager to lie down with the lamb, but a smart lamb will play that scene very carefully. Sometimes you’re a new fuzzy buddy, sometimes you’re dinner.

The conservative governments that have dominated western politics in the last 20 years played a starring role in creating the social ills they now want the Big Society to fix. I guess I just don’t trust them.