The most effective young Facebook users, however -- the ones who will probably be winners if Facebook turns out to be a model of the future they will inhabit as adults -- are the ones who create successful online fictions about themselves.

Anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks and lightweight mash-ups may seem trivial and harmless, but as a whole, this widespread practice of fragmentary, impersonal communication has demeaned personal interaction.

I'm an advocate of human nature.

A remarkable thing about the Silicon Valley culture is that its status structure is so based on technical accomplishment and prowess.

We imagine "pure" cybernetic systems, but we can prove only that we know how to build fairly dysfunctional ones. We kid ourselves when we think we understand something, even a computer, merely because we can model or digitize it.

What does it mean to not be alone? I've approached that question through music, technology, writing and other means.

An intelligent person feels guilty for downloading music without paying the musician, but they use this free-open-culture ideology to cover it.