Who is real? Not me.

It has finally come clear to me that the great social experiment of an Internet of ideas is doomed to fail, if anything because it’s impossible to tell what is real. Let me give you a concrete example.

In February, Slashdot reported the story of a German minister whose Wikipedia entry was falsely adjusted to include an additional segment to his already long full name. Media picked this up and published the incorrect name. While the Wikipedia was reverted, people pointed to the reputable news articles that clearly showed he had this additional name, and so, Wikipedia accepted the reference. This is a case where the Internet’s open architecture resulted in chaos, or at least a false reality.

Here’s another example: the whole point of my blog was to identify these other people in the world who claim to be Mark Jackman. My attempts to contact them or their online webmasters yielded no fruit. I wish I spent more time focusing on this noble goal instead of talking about things unrelated to anything because resolution of this issue has become critical: someone is claiming I am not real. With that, I see that the experiment this blog is serving has failed, and it’s sign of where the Internet is bound to take us: a place where identity is meaningless and can be casually exchanged for nothing. If Oprah can purchase her identity on Twitter, why can’t someone buy mine with nothing more than sheer will?

But here’s the truth. I’m real. This is really my blog. I really work for deckArta (our website is down right now, but it’ll come back, you’ll see!) And so now my very existence is at question. Though it’s true, it is my birthday, and I appreciate there is one final acknowledgment that I am who I am, because before too long my coworkers will ask me to show my driver’s license, my girlfriend is going to say that she has no idea who she slept next to all these years, and further down the road when the Internet is the sole gateway to our consciousnesses, I will disappear in a puff of inconsequential smoke.

It may be that truth is fiction, and I am dead, but not without taking someone with me. Happy Birthday.

Tags: last-straw