Society & Politics

Article originally posted to bTucson.com under Politics and Government

Did Wikileaks trigger events in Tunisia?  Not to devalue the efforts of the Tunisian opposition, street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi's sacrifice or in any way minimize the real problems with the government; just the opposite.  But it could be that Wikileaks publishing a 'truth that everyone knows', was just the consciousness-raising event that needed to happen to get to critical mass.

I think that Vaclav Havel wrote about this, that publishing something that everyone knows, does change things.  It makes it so everyone knows that everyone knows.

There is even a mathematical proof that such an event can trigger a chain reaction.  Its a silly old sexist problem, but this is how I was taught it:  on an island, there is a tribe where everyone is married, everyone cheats, and no one has ever been is caught; but if anyone is caught the wife will be tied to the Hoorah tree in the middle of the island for the night.  One day, the visiting minister, who was the only unmarried person on the island, announces "there is cheating going on" and leaves.  Now, since everyone is cheating, everyone already knew this.  Yet on an island of N couples, you can prove

I'm doing some work (a very little work) with the AloNovo project, which is basically a site to help consumers find socially responsible companies to shop with.   Here's my first post on taking responsibility as an accidental shareholder in these beasts: We the Corporations