GREG HARTON: Be careful what you're asked for

We're just stupid.

By we, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. I'm just saying "we" as in human beings.

Maybe that's harsh. I don't really know anyone I'd consider stupid, but there are plenty of us who choose stupid behaviors. Indeed, I'm almost certain we're all guilty of it at least a few times in our lives.

Take, for instance, student loans. How many people get federally guaranteed student loans to go to college that are so massive it will take them decades to get out from under the debt? Sometimes, it seems as though college-bound students think "federally guaranteed" means someone else will pay the bill if they can't.

Even worse, college students too often select a degree field based only on a general idea of what they would like to do as a career, but with precious little thought given to how much money that career field will offer them. That's fine if one wants to pay-as-you-go through college, but if you're taking on student debt by the truckloads, isn't the size of one's salary once those payments have to be made pretty critical? It makes no sense to spend $100,000 to get a degree in a field that pays $25,000 a year if you're going to do it through student debt. A degree ought to position people to succeed in their life's pursuits. A degree with student debt becomes an anchor around people's necks.

So, yeah, that's one way some very smart people end up being stupid.

I spotted another instance of smart people doing dumb things the other day.

It was Tuesday, which turned out to be National Voter Registration Day. The annual observance has existed since 2012 to supposedly create awareness of the opportunity to be involved in the nation's democratic processes.

It's supported by the National Association of Secretaries of State and companies like Facebook and Google.

So I'm signing into my Facebook account on Tuesday and there, at the top of the page, is a counter adding up the millions of Facebook users who had responded to Facebook's encouragement to indicate they had registered to vote.

OK, lets think back to the election in 2016. It's clear social media sites were manipulated to a great extent to deliver "fake news" and other content designed to influence voters' behaviors in the ballot box. Facebook's creator acknowledged as much in testimony before Congress.

And now Facebook uses National Voter Registration Day as an opportunity to get its users to click on an affirmation in the social media world that they are, indeed, registered to vote.

Sure, perhaps that's just an innocent community-building activity, like wearing the "I vote" sticker on Election Day. But Facebook has never seen data it couldn't find a way to make money from. And with the concerns over social media manipulation from the 2016 election, why should anyone want to hand over more information, particularly political information, by which Facebook and others might target information to select classes of people and not to others?

Paranoia? I prefer to think of it as common sense. If someone calls us up on the phone and starts asking questions about our favorite candidates or political issues or how much money we make, most of us will bow up and declare "That's none of your business."

When Facebook asks, too many people are willing to share everything. And for people trying to manipulate your attitudes and behaviors, that's worth a lot.

Get ready, folks. Election season 2020 is going to be another rough ride.

Commentary on 09/29/2019

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