The XX Factor: What women really think.

Spreading Freedom

A quick follow-up on my earlier post about the software application Freedom. Its creator, Fred Stutzman, plainly did not have his software in use this morning, because he promptly replied to my e-mail asking if he'd take donations to develop a version for us non-Mac-users. Don't bother him with more e-mails: He explained that the skill sets for developing for Mac and for Windows are entirely different, so he's not the man for the job. But he said the interest in a Freedom for Windows seems to be immense, so he's hoping somebody out will rise to the challenge. Me too! I'm ready with a donation.

Desperately Seeking Freedom

I'm desperately seeking Freedom, but didn't know it existed until I read Rebecca Traister on the new software application by that name devised by Fred Stutzman, a PhD candidate at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. It blocks your computer's networking capacities, evidently for as little as a minute or as much as eight hours. A godsend for us online workers/addicts (is there a distinction?), or some of us anyway, if my fruitless efforts to fend off the endless distractions of the internet are any guide.

But it's available for use only on Macs. I have a dumb old Dell (and this isn't the season, alas, for an upgrade). Help! So far of the 10,000 people who have downloaded Freedom, 50 have responded to Stutzman's request for donations. I don't want to flood the poor guy's inbox, but non-Apple-users of the world, unite! Let's email him-- fred@fredstutzman.com--and see if donations from us might be used for developing a non-Mac version. Worst is, we've wasted a little bit of time before embarking on "real" work this morning. I don't know about you, but despite my vows to get down to uninterrupted writing at 8 a.m., I would have been noodling around anyway-and this, or so I'm telling myself, has been all in the cause of future improvements in discipline.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

 Moe,

I think your response was both perceptive and accurate. And you referenced freaking Fukuyama, which I just have to respect. If we weren't on the same page before, we are now. Except maybe about the whole we-drink-because-of-the-pill thing, 'cause, I mean, we get fat because of the pill, everyone around us wants to drink because of the pill; it doesn't usually drive me to bemoan my lack of social capital. Maybe the lack of chocolate chips in my belly... but not my lack of social capital.

No, no, I got your real point, and I deeefinitely found it a little sobering (or not!  ha, ha?) that the only place where the Royal We can find trust these days is in the poorly lit, boozy confines of the last social institution standing. Or kind of standing, if you're frequenting the right bar.

After reading your post, a friend of mine raised a point I thought you'd find interesting: He said that the lack of trust in circulation these days is a result of the decline of our "stabilizing institutions" (his term) and the trust they once fostered. He came up with four institutions: the family, the community, the church, and the government, all four of which, he argued, were mindful of their proper roles and capable of serving humanity at some point and time.

Not recently, perhaps. Regardless, we don't trust those institutions any longer, and so we've withdrawn from them (possible explanation for the  disappearance of the moral hazard?). We've gone in search of new communities and found them online—which is the other place, I'd argue, we go to find trust besides the bar. But when we sign off, you're right, we go where everybody knows your name/ and everybody's glad you came. And with a buzz and the hope of "getting out there and making some bad decisions" (great wisdom from the mouth of Vince Vaughn!), we find ... trust? Or ... something like it. I guess everything really does look better after a few drinks.

I suppose it'll have to do, anyway, until those old stabilizing institutions step up their game and figure out a way to regain a little trust themselves. 

Until then, we'll be at the bar.