First off, I am an inherently private person.  For that reason, among others, I have never had a facebook account and never plan to do so.  I have been migrating to and using encrypted e-mail and encouraging others to do the same.  I have real world friends and relationships in lieu of "electronic friends" so that my personal life is not splayed open on the world wide web for any and all to see.  Further, I have been slowly removing myself from the trappings of societal programming disseminated by those whom I view as propagandists masquerading as television networks and social media companies.

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Now, on to why we are all in trouble...After having watched the large majority of my friends and family obliviously falling victim to mass surveillance and societal programming I took it upon myself to try and warn them of what I see in the world.  Doing so, I have probably become known to them as a wing-nut, conspiracy theorist.  It is interesting to note, however, that many of the things about which I talked to them 5-7 years ago had already been, or have come to be, proven factually true...Gulf of Tonkin, Bohemian Grove, MKUltra, CIA drug smuggling, etc...  One of the things I routinely warned them about the most was the astonishing level of surveillance of the populace that was (and still is) occurring worldwide and which was confirmed in 2013 by Mr. Snowden's famous whistle-blowing leak.

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It saddens me greatly to see that the majority of humanity simply does not seem to care that every facet of communication, whether it is written, oral, or electronic, is now being monitored, recorded, and stored in gigantic databases.  Along with this is the fact that bio-metric databases are also being created with finger print data, facial recognition data, iris scan data, gait data, et al.   The narcissism prevalent in so many people and effectuated online today only feeds this process as people post pictures of themselves and "tag" others in those photos thereby aiding the creation of these databases.

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To me, the question that begs to be asked is:  "to what end are these databases of our most personal inherent traits and our intimate and private communications being built?"

I personally, will leave it to you, dear reader, to ponder, consider, and derive your own answer to the question.  For me, however, I believe that we are all in trouble due to the danger inherent in allowing governments to have this type of power over and information about each of us.  This, I feel, is a threat to humanity itself.

Now, to those of you bright enough to have recognized the fact that despite my concerns and feelings, I did actually punch that reviled POST button in the nose so that you might now be reading this prose, I come full circle back to my self-psychoanalysis and ask:  So, why now and here with Steemit?  

It's a simple answer:  Because I hope that by supporting and being part of a better alternative, and by some miracle of fate, that Facebook eventually goes the way of Pets.com, Yahoo Auctions, and Beenz which are all now in the dustbin of internet history.  Once all of the companies exposed by Snowden as being complicit it giving away our information have found there way into that dustbin I, for one, will start to feel more comfortable.

I look forward to having thoughtful exchanges via these posts with those of you who may share my thoughts and even with those of you who may not.