In this context, by "cause of transparency" we are not asking "what causes transparency?" Rather, we are identifying transparency as a cause, which is to say, something worth fighting for.
LorraineLee may be a rebel, but not a rebel without a cause.
PubwanWiki exists to advance the cause. Other organizations exist for this purpose, such as, for example, Transparency International. Their mission appears (to me anyway) to be political transparency. Pubwan seeks economic transparency, which is to say market transparency. The way in which I propose to do this is with a multi-pronged strategy. The plan includes adding prongs from volunteers other than myself. So far, the tines on my ForkOfPubwan include the following:
I keep coming up with more, so you may (or may not) want to check this page occasionally for changes.
These are hard times for the cause of transparency. The post 9/11 insanity continues, and the role of secrecy in government continues to grow like a cancer. If that's not bad enough, the empirical evidence that information doesn't want to be free keeps mounting. Academia's share of the economic pie is still shrinking, and competition over what's left of scholarly career opportunities is brutal.
Fortunately, the open systems movement still enjoys widespread popularity. File sharing is still a force to be reckoned with. Now is as good a time as any to step forward as a PubwanParticipant!
Sometimes it seems transparency is a lost cause.
From the perspective of those for whom transparency is an important cause, these must be seen as dark times indeed. Perhaps the most famous name associated with the cause of transparency is David Brin. I regard him rather as a partisan of the cause of panopticism. The controversy over terminology owes, as usual, to my own biases, hence...
(begin first person singular mode) (see PubWanTechnology)
I am of the opinion that the major philosophical disease of our time is the (usually) rightist insistence on attributing everything about the humyn experience to the supposed dichotomy between the public sector and the private sector. I prefer to draw the battle lines between individuals and institutions, regarding the former dichotomy as false. For the purpose of this discussion, I view individuals as humyn organisms, and institutions as legal, social or economic entities that are not individuals. The latter includes the categories "business," "nation state," "political subdivision of nation state," "nonprofit organization," "ecclesiastical organization" and "family." It may include other types of institutions. My use of "institution" is virtually synonymous with that of "group entity" by some self-identified anarchists. I prefer "institution," of course, due to its generally impersonal and inorganic connotations. I am undecided to which (if either) category artificial intelligences belong. I guess it would depend on what they might "decide" to do with "my" personal information. :-) If it quacks like a duck...
I am of the view that the cause of transparency is a worthy cause only to the extent that it works both ways.
(end FPS)
(begin rant)
Privacy good!
Secrecy bad!
(end rant)