I mean look at all these acquisitions and mergers - WhatsApp and Oculus and et cetera. There's no way that you can envision these tech companies as the underdog anymore. They're always presented as though they were these little guys who you should be championing - Facebook will overthrow the cable television complex, blah blah - but it's more likely they will merge with them.

One of the big myths about people growing up is that they are "digital natives;" that just because they've been raised with the Internet - that you're very adept at using the app on your phone - it doesn't mean you have any idea about how the Internet actually works.

I mean look at all these acquisitions and mergers - WhatsApp and Oculus and et cetera. There's no way that you can envision these tech companies as the underdog anymore. They're always presented as though they were these little guys who you should be championing - Facebook will overthrow the cable television complex, blah blah - but it's more likely they will merge with them.

A big factor is that the enthusiast camp's values are really rooted in Silicon Valley and in these supposedly new business models. But again, I think this such an interesting moment because things like the NSA revelations are really forcing people to recognize the connections between corporate and government surveillance.

One connection I see between the work I did on philosophy and my work on technology is that both communities tend to mystify and create an atmosphere of complexity.

Are we on the tail-end of a generation that is enamored with the novelty of these devices and will younger people coming of age be more blasé about them in a healthy way? You look back at the history of any medium and the people who were there when it was developing, whether it was the telegraph or cable television or radio, thought, This is amazing, it's going change everything, or, The human community will finally be able to recognize each other and speak and be one - I mean, some people thought the telegraph or television would usher in world peace.

As a citizen I might be well-behaved and have nothing salacious or radical about me, I might be a total bore, but I might suffer somehow if other people are being spied on and blocked from doing important work that might have a collective benefit down the road. The personal doesn't necessarily translate to the social.