The Mu: David Muir's Personal Blog

In the most recent (Early Spring 2012) issue of Home Digest, author Jim Campbell delves into the topic of trust.  It is not a review of ethics but an observation that in today’s complex world we rely on trust far more than we used to.

I am almost never in agreement with these “slippery slope” theories about how the world is so much worse today than it was it the good old days.  But Campbell does a great job of moving from our trust in technological advancements like plasma TVs and USB memory sticks (the inner workings of which are completely hidden from us) to our trust in legal documents.

In today’s complex and harried world, people often don’t want to know the details of the things they are signing.  In my field, real estate, we are talking about the biggest purchase someone may ever make. I encourage all my clients to read the documents they are signing.  I further try to go through the documents clause by clause.  However, even with such a big purchase, many clients feel that they don’t need to know it all. Some prefer to rely on trust.

Every day we are asked to sign things that may or may not bind us to terms that we wouldn’t agree with if we fully understood them.  In fact, modern “terms of use” licenses often never even require a signature and just by opening or using a product we are implicitly agreeing to the terms.

Campbell’s point is that a signature today represents trust in the sales representative or the lawyer far more than it represents actual knowledge of what is being signed.

All our lives, we’ve been warned to watch out for the fine print.  Often the lawyers have added so many things to a standard agreement that it is ALL fine print.  Sometimes, Campbell points out, there is ultra-fine print — presumably much more dangerous than the fine print.

I watch the reaction of salespeople when I actually read the things they put in front of me to sign.  Most are annoyed that I am slowing things down.  In fact, in Campbell’s article, he asserts that if we actually stopped to understand all the agreements we are being asked to make, the world would “grind to a halt”. I want my clients to trust me, but I believe the best way I can earn that trust is to ensure that they are entering into any deal with eyes wide open and full knowledge of the contents and terms of the deal: no matter how long it takes.

One of the greatest pieces of writing I have seen recently is by a Polish writer, Piotr Czerski, and translated by Marta Szreder.  The piece is like a manifesto for the Internet age.  It targets three key areas of thought:

1. How the Internet is not something separate but something integral.  How this fact makes attitudes of the “Web kids” different.
2. How culture is viewed in an age when digital copying and distribution have become commonplace.
3. How governments and traditional institutions force outmoded paradigms onto a citizenry who increasingly feels contempt for them — not because the Web kids are such rebels but because they are growing accustomed to working with institutions who are in line with the way the “kids” live and work.

By the way, as old as I am, I feel very much in line with the sentiments expressed in this article and thus consider myself a Web kid too.

Please read the piece called “My, dzieci sieci” or “We, the Web kids”.

If you’re in the United States and you’re thinking about getting a big screen for the Super Bowl, be careful.  On any screen larger than 55 inches, if you invite someone over to watch the game, you’re committing copyright infringement.  That’s because the way the law is written, your friends comprise “the public” and that makes it a public performance.

(II) if the performance or display is by audiovisual means, any visual portion of the performance or display is communicated by means of a total of not more than 4 audiovisual devices, of which not more than 1 audiovisual device is located in any 1 room, and no such audiovisual device has a diagonal screen size greater than 55 inches, and any audio portion of the performance or display is communicated by means of a total of not more than 6 loudspeakers, of which not more than 4 loudspeakers are located in any 1 room or adjoining outdoor space;