Stenton the Shark

The creatures of the Marianas Trench were very fascinating.  So fascinating that Mae had over one-hundred thousand viewers by the time they were done being put into the same tank.  However, these creatures are very symbolic.  The three Marianas Trench creatures each represent each of the Wise Men, and the plight of the Circle.  This can be seen by Ty/Kalden being the seahorse, Bailey being the octopus, and Stenton being the Shark.

Ty the founder of the Circle is finally seen when the Marianas Trench ecosystem comes together, even though he has been seen all throughout the book by being Kalden.  The secrecy surrounding Ty can be equated to the seahorse.  Immediately when the seahorse was added to the tank, it hid.  This is much like how Ty went into secrecy shortly after creating the Circle.  This seahorse already knew the dangers that could come, which makes me wonder if Ty had already seen the dangers that the Circle poses right after he created it.  The seahorse also had many children, like how Ty has many workers.

The children of the seahorse seemed to just move around mindlessly, without any real direction.  While the see horse moved, knowingly to become hidden, like Ty.  The children of the seahorse are the workers of the Circle, not knowing exactly what is going on or their purpose but still moving around and marveling at the Circle's progress.  This shows just how different the mindsets of the Circle's workers are as compared to its creator.  At this point, Ty needed more help so he turned to Bailey, much like how the octopus was added into the tank.

The octopus is without a shadow of a doubt Bailey.  All the octopus wanted to do was get to know everything, from its new home to all of the other inhabitants.  This is much like Bailey, who wanted to get to know everyone in the Circle.  The octopus also tried not to hurt anything, such as the many seahorses, like how Bailey tried to never hurt anybody's feelings at the Circle.  The idea of the octopus expanding in size can be related to Bailey because his personality grew to try and include everyone.  This can also be seen because Bailey would always be known in any room he enters, like octopus expanding to fill any container it is put in.  Bailey is only the second of the Wise Men, the third came in the form of a shark.

Stenton, the business mind of the Circle, is the shark.  He is completely enthralled by everything the shark does and does not every look away from it.  He is by far the most ruthless of the Wise Men, and the shark is 100% ruthless.  The shark is also very transparent, literally, while Stenton is very straight forward (transparent figuratively).  Stenton was blunt and told people exactly what he thought, like how all of the shark's digestion could be seen.  Also, the shark destroyed everything in the tank.  This could symbolize how Stenton's greed will be the downfall of the Circle.  The Shark destroyed the octopus, much like Stenton could take down Bailey, who is too nice to fight back.  Then, once the octopus is out of the way, the shark went after the seahorse and quickly ate it, like how Ty is quickly incapacitated from trying to stop the completion.   This all leads to the destruction of everything in the tank, or symbolically, the Circle.

The Mariana's trench creatures were very important in showing just what was going on in the book.  Each of the Mariana's trench creatures personified their respective Wise Man and showed just how the destruction of the Circle will come apart.  It seems that once the completion happens, like the completion of the ecosystem, nothing will be safe from the destruction.  

Secrets to Transparency

Mae, the heroine of the story, and new champion of the people, has gone transparent.  With this new life, comes many new rules, mainly that she must wear a camera at all times. The idea of transparency is not as clear and concise as the Circle makes it out to be.  This new system may seem like the best way to keep a person honest, there are still many faults to it and ways of using it misleadingly.

Along with Mae's new transparency comes a new job, to show off the Circle to all the people watch her video stream.  Right as the Book II takes off, Mae is in the middle of one of these tours.  In this case, Mae, along with all of her watchers, are watching the mysterious creatures that Stenton found in the Marianas Trench.  Mae then goes on to talk about how her life is mostly showing her viewers the various parts of the circle.

These tours that Mae gives around the Circle may seem innocent, as a way for people to see what life it like inside the circle, but it also has a dark side to it.  All of Mae's videos around the circle are a form of propaganda.  She is only showing her viewers the best parts of the circle.  If a source outside of the Circle was employing Mae to give these tours, they would not contain this bias.

This bias is only exemplified by the fact that Mae is only walking around the Circle all day because she is told to.  The viewers would believe that everything Mae is doing is just part of her regular day at the Circle, but that is not the case.  Mae is being told what to show people at the Circle, through an earpiece, which the viewers cannot hear.

This earpiece is just one of the many ways that the transparency can be bypassed, to still keep secrets.   This earpiece allows Mae to be told what to do, and say without her viewers being able to know.  That means that even though Mae is "transparent" she can still be told secret information.  This is something that completely goes against the meaning of transparency, that the transparent person can't have secret meetings.

Speaking of secret meetings, there are still plenty of opportunities for Mae to meet people without her viewers knowing.  This can be seen when Mae and Annie go to the bathroom to talk.  Now, the camera was never turned off during this time, it looking only at the stall door, but the sound was.  This means that since, Mae and Annie were in side by side stalls, they could talk without anyone knowing, which could be the case with any meetings made.  This is not the only time when meetings could happen in secret.

Each night, Mae is allowed to turn off her camera at 10:00 PM.  This means that Mae can do whatever she wants after this time, without anyone knowing, at least until the next morning.  This gives ample time, when she could secret meets at night, which is something that would be frowned upon, if she was a government official.  Now, there were still SeeChange cameras in her room, but she could have turned them off if she wanted to, and I'm sure not everyone has SeeChange cameras everywhere.  This shows just how much Mae could get around her transparency.

Now, I'm not saying that it's a bad thing that she is able to get some privacy.  I'm just saying that these aspects go against want the Circle says they are doing, by pushing government officials to be transparent.  On the other hand, the officials may have more strict rules for their transparency, but I highly doubt this is the case.  This just shows how much the Circle acts like they are being the champions of openness and knowledge, but their methods can still be walked around.

Mae's Ideas

Secrets are lies.  Sharing is caring.  Privacy is theft.  These three phrases are used by Mae to justify the need for people to share all of their data and information.  Although, I do not believe that Mae thought she was going to continue to be an example for these ideas, by becoming transparent.  Each of these phrases have a different degree of truth to them, and vary in how much they relate to the real world.

According to Mae, "Secrets are lies."  I don't completely agree with that statement, but she makes a good argument.  She talks about how when people notice secrets, they make up lies to tell themselves what the secret is.  This is what leads her to make her statement, that "Secrets are lie."  However, ask yourself this, is a lie you tell yourself really a lie?

I believe the answer is no, because even though you are telling yourself a lie, because you create the lie, you know that it is not true.  So truly, you can't lie to yourself if you know that it is a lie.  I feel like this is very confusing, and there is probably a philosophical theory about this idea, although I do not know of it.  Even though I believe that the phrase, "secrets are lies," is itself a lie, I do agree with Mae's idea that, "sharing is caring."

Mae's second idea, "sharing is caring," had much more truth to it.  All of my life I remember hearing this phrase, and it has been said around the world for many years.  It is true that when you share what you have with people, be it your time, money, or toys (when you were a little kid), you are able to show someone how much they mean to you. Even though I agree with this statement more than the other, it still has its flaws.

The problem with "sharing is caring" is when you share too much, to where it hurts the other person.  An example of this is when Francis videos himself and Mae.  When Francis chose to do this, he really did not take in Mae's feelings, and because he shared to much, they were pushed apart.  Even though Bailey talked about how, things should be shared for the good of other people, no one would benefit from Francis's video.  "Sharing is caring" may have been at least partially true, but the phrase "privacy is theft" is the exact opposite of the truth.

The idea that "privacy is theft" is completely false as far as I am concerned.  An example of this in Mae's life, was when she shared the chandelier that Mercer had created.  Due to Mae's theft of Mercer's privacy, Mercer feels violated and is made uncomfortable.  Examples of this are not only in the circle, but in real life.

 It our society today, it is seen that when anyone goes against your privacy, that itself is theft.  An example of this is plagiarism, when a person's ideas are stolen, because they were not private. In this case, if the person had not shared their ideas with the public, no one would have had a chance to take them.  This idea is the exact opposite of Mae's idea that "privacy is theft."

Mae's ideas may have sounded very progressive to her fellow peers at the Circle, but they would not have been as well received in the real world.  Each of these ideas had varying degrees of truth to them, but none of them was completely sincere.  Mae's life at the Circle so far may have led her to create these ideals, but now that she has gone transparent, will she continue to believe in them?

Privacy in a World of Data

The moment that Mae became an employee at the Circle, she was pushed into a world of data.  Mae must constantly answer data, in the form of questions from her customers, by using data provided to her by her bosses, who she communicates with through data.  Every aspect of Mae's work life revolves around data, but does her data have any privacy?

One of the earliest examples of how little privacy there is at the Circle can be seen when Alistair calls out Mae for not going to his Portugal Brunch.  Even though Mae has never met, let alone heard of Alistair or his Portugal Brunch, he finds out about her and expects her to be there.  

The reason that Alistair even thought to invite Mae is because of the data from her computer, which was uploaded to the cloud, which contained pictures of Mae's trip to Portugal from five years ago.  Before their meeting, Mae had thought nothing of upload all her data into the cloud, but now it can be seen that anyone can search and access her data.  This means that she truly has no privacy in the cloud.

Another instance of people getting into Mae's data unexpectedly was during the Gus's Dream Friday presentation.  When Francis volunteered to be a participant in LuvLuv, Mae thought that was embarrassing enough until they started looking into her data to be his date.

Even though technically none of Mae's data that they went to was private, since she had posted it all, it still felt like a breach of her privacy.  This is because all of this miscellaneous information alone did not paint a picture of who Mae is, but together they showed more about Mae than she would have wanted the crowd to know.

It seems that in this instance, data is less private when a person chooses for people to see it at that time, but when past data and information comes up without the person wanting it to, it is felt to be more private.  Although, as Francis pointed out, Mae had put all the information out to the world, and the software just collected it all.

This is not the first time that Francis hasn't worried too much about a person's data being private.  Earlier, Francis had explained to Mae about how ChildTrack would implant chips into the bones of children to prevent them from being abducted.

In theory this is a great idea to protect the children, but it still takes away the child's privacy and freedom.  Children don't always want their exact location to be know constantly even though this is would be a fairly reasonable trade off, for parents, to know that their child is safe.

The true problem that could be seen with the ChildTrack and all the other data, is that it could be misused.  If a bad person got a hold of the data and used it wrongly, or if a new power took over the Circle and misused the data, then everyone's privacy would be gone, and their data could be used against them.

It seems that the ideas of data and privacy are intertwined together because the more data a person lets out into the world, the less privacy that they have.  It seems that Mae is still not completely on board with all of the lack of privacy at the Circle but she is starting to soften up to the idea of it.

Circle Blog 1: New Place. New Life

New place. New job.  New people.  New life.  This is the reality for Mae at the beginning of The Circle, as well as for myself and all of the other freshman, just joining the Penn State family.  Early on into the book, similarities between the Circle and Penn State can be seen.

 This can be greatest seen in that the Circle is referred to as a "campus" within the first ten words of the book.  Already, you can see just how closely related the Circle will be to a college.

The dynamic of Mae's arrival is much the same as our arrival on campus.  Within a short time of arriving, we were whisked off to be given a tour of campus.  In the same way, Renata begins giving Mae a tour of the Circle as soon as she arrives.  In both instances, these tours lasted most of the day, and no work needed to be done until later on another day.

The Circle is also brimming with opportunities just like Penn State is.  Mae attends a party on her very first day of work, truly before she has even started working.  This is much like how Penn State has had constant activities and events going on since we got here, and we've been here for three weeks!

There also seems to be a rich social life going on at the campus, just like at Penn State.  It seems that everyone at the Circle is friends with other people there, like a college campus, rather than trying to separate their work and personal lives.  This can greatly be seen by both groups attending parties with the people they work with.

I have also found that in many cases, like Mae, I end up working with two screens.  As soon as Mae started working, she had to contend with two different screens of information.  I find that many times when I am doing homework, I must jump between my computer screen, that I am typing on, and my phone screen, to read a book, check my email or numerous other tasks.

The people of the Circle and Penn State also have many similarities.  It seems like the people who work at the Circle act and talk like most college kids do, with lots of swearing and lots of jokes.  This enforces the idea that the circle is much more like a college campus, than a business.  I just can't see the people at Apple taking and making the jokes like the people at the circle, although I could be wrong, since I have never been to their headquarters.

A final similarity between the Circle and Penn State can be seen by Bailey's unveiling.  This event, at its beginning was reminiscent of the Convocation, where students in each college had to stand, and then look around awkwardly at everyone else standing while people stared at them, just like Mae had to do.  Bailey's speech also tried to pump up all of the circle employees to be in support, much like how the all the college student would be after any of the big school spirit centered events that we went to.

All of these examples are just part of the countless ways that the Circle is just like Penn State.  It is amazing to think that within months, Mae, as well as us freshman, will no longer be considered new to our new locations, but will find that it is home.

A Matter of Passion

Passion.  It's something you believe in, and something you care a lot about.  This is just what passion is to me, but many different people would be able to give many different definitions of this powerful word.  Along with its many different meanings, passion can be shown in many different ways.  One way that we can show our passion, is through our Passion Blog.

When I first started thinking about my Passion Blog, I wasn't sure what to do. Then one night, inspiration struck. From that inspirstion, I began to entertain the idea of writing my Passion Blog about Penn State.  With that in mind, it did not take me long to discover how I would like to represent Penn State in my blog.

I would like to name my blog, "The Nightly Lion."  This is, of course, a play on words for our mascot, the Nittany Lion.  Along with this title, I would like to use the tag-line, "A tour of Penn State in another light:  The moonlight."

The idea behind this blog is that during the day, campus is abuzz with activity, but at night, things start to settle down, and the campus takes on a completely different identity.  The buildings, that in the daytime are so close to one another, seem to each become their own little world in the night.  These landmarks and building can also invoke many new feeling in the night, and give people inspiration.

I would like to organize this blog by going to a different landmark, or building on or around campus each week. These landmarks would include; Old Main, the HUB, and the Nittany Lion Shrine, just to name a few.  Each post will contain a picture of the landmark, as well as a description of it, and what it has become in the night time, along with the idea that it represents.

It is my hopes that this blog will help people to see that there is more to Penn State than a bunch of building, in the day or in the night.  Please let me know how amazing this idea is or if I should just give up on on all my hopes and dreams and move on. Your feedback will help me to make my final decisions.