Which is worse:

A title that goes overboard with buzzwords?

Or that sinking feeling in your gut where you realize you’ve been gamed through human engineering?

We can talk all we want about using the internet for good, for sharing ideas and insights.  It still comes down to flashy packaging designed to grab attention in an increasingly noisy room.  The people who made big money writing the big letters on the envelopes of the direct mail pieces are now generating big traffic with old tricks designed to get us to rip open the envelope.  It’s not even an appeal to greed so much, as an irresistable appeal to curiosity.

I laugh at the people who sell technology and these bright-and-shinys as something alien and new.  It’s still rooted in human nature.  We still respond to the same stimuli.

I fear for the people who think chain-letter scams, sexual predators and phishing are the dangers.  The most effective online crime isn’t a matter of technology, it’s exploiting human nature.  We still respond to the same stimuli.

I am sad for the people who cringe at the wide open frontiers available to educate and connect them with others around the world.  They are afraid for the wrong reasons.  The inborn and instinctual tools we all have — that help us determine who we trust and who we don’t — still apply in an online world.  We still respond to the same stimuli.

What’s old is new again.  Which is why you were here to begin with.

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