I meant to blog more about this conference, but oops. I guess I'll post what I have for now and then fill it it later. :) It's a conference of no sleep.
San Francisco offered the chance to really have an RT focused day. As a part of the Technological Advancement and Society RT, it was ridiculously exciting to be in the San Francisco Bay Area (not just because I'm from here) and be given this opportunity, given that it's home not only to Silicon Valley's famous tech companies such as Facebook, Google, and Apple, but also because of the startup culture that's constantly pushing the boundaries of business and technology. The opportunities seemed endless.
Unfortunately, endless choices make it extremely difficult to choose a place to visit: should we stay in San Francisco, or go down to Silicon Valley proper? Do we have enough time to go down to Stanford if we do? How much time did we really have in the first place? These questions kind of plagued our RT's discussion of where we should go. We had actually chosen two companies prior, but they hadn't really responded with the kind of firm "no" you need to properly acknowledge that they are not an option to visit, so we were still discussing various options.
This is why, come five days prior to our actual field trip, we still had no idea where we were going and suddenly Stanford was an option (it hadn't been before because of how long it would take to get there). Unfortunately (or fortunately I suppose) as one of the two Bay Area natives (and the one with more actual contacts in the area) the majority of them were in the South Bay, which meant alternative transportation and logistics of moving from UC Berkeley to its rival Stanford; driving, it takes roughly one hour, but by public transportation it takes about two (which was why it was not an option in the first place).
I was really excited when I heard that Stanford was an option, but dismayed at the fact that this choice came at such late notice - too late actually, for any of my contacts. We started scrambling to try to figure out a place. The day of RT free time got closer. We did a home stay. The day for RT free time jumped closer by two. We still didn't have a place to go.
Things happen for a reason though. I'm not a believer of things like "fate" or "destiny" per se, but I do think that things will find a way to work out.
This is how Tech ended up at Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to talk to one of their members about net neutrality and privacy on the Internet. Things just ended up falling in to place; someone's home stay actually was kind enough to get us this contact, and we spent a much needed morning to catch up on RT discussion time that had been lost in days prior as well as do an RT reflection.
RT reflection, in my opinion, really helped us grow together as a group, and grow closer. I know for me, I came out of that convinced thoroughly that I was in the best roundtable, and trace of sadness at not getting into Modern Consequences of Historical Education completely gone. Our Tech group is really close, and it just feels so incredibly safe to talk to them and know that I won't be judged when I do so, or that I can be vulnerable to them and that they - all nine other members - have my back. I don't open up easily to other people; I don't like being that vulnerable and I've gone through so much of my life fighting to minimize my vulnerability, but this has been something so unique to JASC so far, and I think a big part of my JASC experience. Really, we have the best RT, even if it means that we are last to do everything since we usually go by alphabetical order. (Woop woop Tech!)
So much happened this day for our group. Other groups probably had, no, *did* have completely different experiences. I heard one group went to Angel Island, another rode cable cars to Ghiradelli Square and Fisherman's Warf. I won't lie, but I was extremely jealous of all the fun they were having and was mildly annoyed at the fact that our RT was stuck in Berkeley most of the day (even though I'm a Bay Area native and have been to these places a ton of times) and wasn't actually doing anything fun. Looking back though, I'm grateful for the experiences we had, and wouldn't have changed it so that we had gone and just done fun stuff (which would undoubtedly be fun, but wouldn't have given us such an amazing experience).
April, from EFF, was kind enough to talk to us relatively last minute for a really quick time. She explained to us the mission of EFF as well as some of the projects it's doing and the court cases and lawsuits it's pursuing. The big one are against the NSA and the government for breaching our constitutional rights by using cable splitters to copy data from the Internet illegally - specifically, the First Amendment (free speech) and the Fourth (due process). We also had the opportunity to ask her questions about why privacy was important, and what a sort of ideal solution looked like if the NSA was doing so many things they didn't like. I think many of us were also surprised to find out that they were also fighting TPP, the trade agreements that are being proposed between eleven (or was it twelve?) different countries in the Pacific region. TPP has actually been a topic we've touched on and debated a little bit at JASC, but the general consensus seems to be mostly positive towards this, so that EFF was so vehemently opposed to it was a bit of a shock for all of us. I think we've primarily viewed TPP from the Japan-America ties only, especially around the topic of agriculture, so intellectual property wasn't something that was on many of our radars until now.
Overall, it was an extremely interesting (albeit short) meeting and a good chance to really hear from a different side of both TPP, net neutrality, and online privacy. It was interesting to hear their objections to TPP and their proposed solution to "fixing" the NSA. Most of their objections to TPP were that they stemmed from "secret deals made behind closed doors" and the lack of transparency; that the terms of the proposed trade alliance were not democratically chosen.
I can't help but wonder though - isn't that how a lot of deals are made? Transparency, sure, is nice, but I am not sure everything really *should* be transparent. I'm also slightly skeptical about how democratic the process of agreeing upon the terms of TPP (and TPP itself) should be. We've chosen specific people with specializations in that area to act on our behalf and make these deals because we, as individual citizens, probably don't have the same type of knowledge or background that they do about the topic. Our choices and decisions, therefore, would be less informed.
As to the whole "secret meetings" and things, a lot of how Japanese culture functions, the way some business is conducted, is indeed in these more "secret" meetings outside of the office proper. By the time the decision reaches the main office - the "front" side if you will - it's already been talked about to all the important actors more behind the scenes in locations the individuals could talk freely without having to worry about one side losing face to the other in front of everyone. It's not necessarily that they go to these secret places for this with the purpose of conducting secret negotiations, but in front of the press and everyone, isn't it sort of natural to need to appear to be more unyielding on your stance? In a course I took on Japanese business, this was one of the things that the professor drove home - that often times, approaching an individual through a go-between or in an "ura" setting (meaning, some place that's a little more private and not in front of others) is necessary to both preserve relationships and move things and decisions forward. Even though they're in private locations, it's out of the desire to not have to "perform" (in a sense) rather than out of a desire to deceive or to keep the conditions and deals from others. But the US side doesn't usually see things that way; these kind of deals lead to distrust and suspicion. Fundamentally though, I have a hunch that the huge opposition to this is largely founded in cultural differences. I think too though, that often we Americans forget that our governmental officials, diplomats, business people, and others in high positions are still humans despite the amount of power they wield. For me it makes a lot of sense that they would be able to talk more freely behind closed doors "in secret" and get more done when they don't have to be the face of their nation or corporation or whomever.
I digress though. Regardless of my own stance towards the NSA and whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, our visit to EFF was both informative and interesting, but it wasn't the end of our day.
We (Tech, though I guess I mean I really) had two and a half more interesting parts of the day. The first was right after our meeting, when we made the decision to walk back to Powell Station rather than walk to Civic center or take the bus since it probably took about the same amount of time. Except walking meant walking back through the Tenderloin - something I kind of forgot about, slash, didn't realize that it extended that far up from Civic Center area. Oops.
The Tenderloin, for those who don't know, has the reputation of the worst area in San Francisco (though in this Bay Area person's opinion, probably not as dangerous as certain parts of Oakland) mostly because of the (crazy) druggies, dealers, pimps, and transients who are out on the streets and who also tend to be sometimes kind of aggressive. The Tenderloin also houses a bunch of low-income housing units, with people who fiercely fight to keep those units as low-income housing as the tech boom drives the prices of housing in San Francisco sky high. It's not somewhere you really want to walk by yourself (especially as a woman, especially at night), though it's usually fine in groups of three or when you have a guy with you, especially during the day. But it's a place you want to have your street smart wits about you. So don't act scared. Don't act like a complete tourist. Don't mark yourself as an easy target.
Unfortunately, I forgot that it was the Tenderloin and that we were traveling in a huge group of ten people with half of us speaking a lot of Japanese, and most of us slightly terrified because of not being used to walking through bad areas. A lot of walking through there, I think, are attitude. You gotta look like you belong, and that no, you are not an easy target and you're walking with Purpose. So that was exciting.
The .5 exciting part was riding BART, mostly because we forgot it was rush hour and it was crowded and we had to transfer.
The last though, was when we did large group reflection. I think we've reached a turning point in our group, because people are finally starting to share more and more as RTs have done group reflections as well. It's kind of interesting. I've noticed that our RTs really give us strength - strength to do things like talk to the larger group and open up. The whole delegation of course, is pretty cool, but it's our RT who really acts as our backbone and support.
I'm glad I decided to stay with JASC.
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