People on facebook complaining about privacy (i.e. the NSA) are like people who drag their entire social network into the middle of the ocean complaining that someone they didn’t authorize is splashing them. In short: we have never demonstrated even the slightest -active- concern for our privacy, but we are urgently compelled to complain -passively- when it is violated.

The mistake Snowden made is too obvious: he rescued victims who will dispose of his sacrifice like a news item they worried over then ignored again. Our -social culture- is not (yet) intelligent enough to have -the slightest idea- how to effectively leverage Snowden’s heroism. Nor does it have any intention of becoming thus. Snowden will be martyred. He tried to save a population that loves to complain in public, but is about as effective as milk sop at actively converting intelligence to solutions and techniques. His initial act could ignite… solutions and techniques that would have immediate and shocking impact, instead of producing waves of speculation and textual side-taking, but the chance of this is slim, because the population is constricted within the monsters it opposes.

Personally? I think he’s an myopic because he lives in a world that doesn’t exist. Of course, he could be a prophet, too. But, much like another martyr who is famous, he’s trying to rescue people who cannot wait to drown. And that would be us, by the way — as demonstrated by our absolutely passive failure to -do anything- with this information. He will be prosecuted and executed with the resources generated by his heroism, and, most probably, we, his supposed allies, will be worse off for his activity, because unlike our adversaries, we will not learn, become intelligent, or respond effectively and heuristically to the intelligence he provided. But they will. Fast, too.

P.S: Why are we still thinking, acting, and failing like it is 1952? Isn’t anyone suspicious about that? It’s 2013? Where did the endless social, ecological, cultural, educational and humane advances we were promised disappear to? Or, more accurately, why are we regressing catastrophically where we were promised the benefits of our work and common concern?

WAKE UP.