Sunday, December 19th, 2010, 1:14 pm
Transparency
ransparency can be a way of life to those who wish to expose what they are doing. Since 2002 when I built this Web site I have made many aspects of my life public and this did not cause much trouble at all. Transparency leads to a state where there are no secrets and thus there is little room for scandals or mischief. Last night I was challenged by a friend to whom my preference of transparency seemed inadequate. This is fine. Well, more and more people willingly become more transparent over time (sadly in Web sites like Facebook which exploit them) and their eagerness to share personal material is proving infectious. Governments too are starting to find out that sooner or later data which they keep secret will leak and Neelie Kroes rightly pointed out that Wikileaks/Cablegate will push more governments toward becoming transparent.
Transparency breeds trust. Secrecy breeds misconduct.
December 21st, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Transparency builds trust because obfuscation and holding others at arm’s length creates suspicion of concealment.
Like the general population, our politicians are all over the place as far as where they stand…from far left to center to far right.
As a rule though, too much of anything is not good for us. Can there be too much transparency? Of course, that’s why the code letters T.M.I. became so popular.
December 24th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
I think high level of transparency is possible when the parties involved agree on transparency in advance. This helps reduce the likelihood of deviation from rules/ethics.