The Knights of Summer

I think I know what it feels like to be the guy who leaked that government stuff this week that was all about... something something internet... that all kinds of people are now celebrating/REALLY REALLY MAD ABOUT!! because I watch Game of Thrones.

Nothing specifically about Game of Thrones is particularly enlightening about this subject, by way of content I mean. The only things I think I've learned directly from the show is decent, clean beheading technique and how to be scary to my children while skinning a deer. Although, to be honest, the disembowling alone most of the work on the last one.

The practical take-away from the show, like any other show based in a fantasy world inhabited by both dragons and zombies, is slight more oblique. "Attempt to murder all of your enemies" is a practical position I suppose, and when seen through the prism of Darwinian evolution, almost a natural imperative. But without the more fantastical existential threats like snow zombies or assassin vagina monsters, the bloody death of humans by other humans just comes across as at best petulant and inherently socially destabilizing at worst. There's no scarier, unearthly Other to put it in better context.

What I mean is, I can understand what it's like to know something others are not supposed to know, understanding also that exposing them to this truth could be sources of great stress and upset to them. I've seen all the existing episodes of all three seasons of Game of Thrones. And I know unequivocally that there are people who read this blog who have not yet seen all of them, but intend to. So I take very seriously my obligation as a citizen of TV Dork Nation to keep that shit locked down until such a time as the information can be rendered harmless. Of course the difference in consequences are slightly less dire for me vs. Government Self-Appointed Whistleblower Guy.* Worst case scenario for me if I let something slip, I get something thrown at my head. This other guy is looking at two bad-to-worse scenarios of either jail or defecting to China both of which, if we consider the correctional institution practice of gender segregation in the United States and the long-term effects of the One Child Policy in China coupled with the cultural preference for boys, are total sausage-fests. And remember, he left his lady back in Hawaii when he lit out. Full consideration of the consequences of his actions doesn't seem to be homeboy's strong suit.

So I understand my obligation to protect the fictional narrative integrity for those who know less than me. And having worked in a tangential way for government-types over a stretch of time, I also understand that not knowing things I'm not meant to know is a type of not only general security but personal emotional preservation. Just having access to information classified above your clearance is not a good enough reason to seek it out. One is also required to possess a definable need to know for some professional or security capacity. Similarly, all the Game of Thrones is out there on the internet, bidden or unbidden, but knowing it would make me very sad indeed. Do I want to know who lives or who dies or, let's be honest at this point, how each character dies in what bloody, painful and nihilistically meaningless way? No, I really don't. Because I like being surprised by the show and also because if someone told me, I would be forced to harm them physically. Which, if I remember Pledge Week at all, I don't really care for.

And now I know the government has access to all my phone call records and lists of emails I've sent. Am I happier for knowing it? "Think of the ways it could be exploited!" Yes, great. I looked for flights to Chicago once. And I've gotten Chicago-specific advertisements in dozens of sites I've visited since. I think the passive tracking cat may already be out of the bag. Everything I've done on a phone or the internet has been tracked since the first time I entered a password, probably on an old Prodigy account. But until now "only" corporations had access to it. I'm not saying I don't get the violation or the potential for greater abuse. I'm just saying the queasiness was already there. Having it confirmed for me that these lists exist and they're being traded like those poor super-butch killer slave army guys met by [GAME OF THRONES CHARACTER NAME REDACTED], I'm not sure exactly how liberated I'm supposed to be by this truth.