“I WAS STANDING IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR, NAKED…

Today is my last day (*tear) interning with College Public Policy. For the past couple of months I've been blogging on the CPP site...and all has gone well until this entry (below) was rejected because its a little too academic rather than political. I didn't want it to go to waste, so...:

“I WAS STANDING IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR, NAKED…
Posted by Logan Ashcraft on 25 March 2010

…contemplating my absolute freedom of choice. I have the choice to get dressed OR roam naked all day if I please! I can also talk to whomever I want, whenever I want…while doing WHATEVER I WANT! Free will is a beautiful thing, and my naked reflection evidences my complete autonomy…until I considered the implications of Connected. I then realized I am sub-consciously BOUND by those around me, and have been for years!” exclaimed Dr. Richard Horton, arms waving frantically above his head.

Horton Is editor of The Lancet and was accompanied by Harvard Professor and MD Nicholas Christakis. Christakis co-authored Connected, which presents evidence that many preferences and lifestyle habits (tastes, emotions, and even body size!) are influenced more heavily by social networks rather than free will.

Christakis also explained that slime moulds are efficient spatial networkers, using their one-cell brains to create a network as efficient identical to that of the Tokyo subway, arguing that even at the most basic levels of intelligence, networks are key to survival. But the essential question has been left unanswered: How can this animal instinct be used to achieve policy objectives?
While Christakis and Horton both vaguely touched upon our potential ability to use networks as an instrument in brokering peace between ideologically different nations, it seems to me that so far religious and social network alliances have proven to be a stronger force dividing cultures than uniting them.

If I could have given Christakis and Horton a bit of advice before their presentation, I would remind them that they are speaking to a room of PA and PR professionals, less interested in psychological and biological roots of social networking and more interested application…