Also, more and more I believe that threats are created by our fears, not vice versa. So work on stilling your fears, not eliminate the threats.
Here's an article with a fresh view. Quote:
"So it may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave as if privacy doesn’t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones. For someone like me, who grew up sealing my diary with a literal lock, this may be tough to accept. But under current circumstances, a defiant belief in holding things close to your chest might not be high-minded. It might be an artifact—quaint and naïve, like a determined faith that virginity keeps ladies pure. Or at least that might be true for someone who has grown up “putting themselves out there” and found that the benefits of being transparent make the risks worth it."
Another one:
"At 17, Oppermann is conversant with the conventional wisdom about the online world—that it’s a sketchy bus station packed with pedophiles. (In fact, that’s pretty much the standard response I’ve gotten when I’ve spoken about this piece with anyone over 39: “But what about the perverts?” For teenagers, who have grown up laughing at porn pop-ups and the occasional instant message from a skeezy stranger, this is about as logical as the question “How can you move to New York? You’ll get mugged!”) She argues that when it comes to online relationships, “you’re getting what you’re being.”"
I agree. It's profoundly healthy, this mind shift, hard as it is to get used to. This whole "don't talk to strangers" thing of the 20th is not prudent, it is negative and counter-productive.
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It's a new world with new kinds of communications that us "oldsters" don't understand. I don't get how a site like Noah K Everyday is useful to anybody, but it fits perfectly in the new world. Bless 'em.
[Thanks to TTL for pointing to the NYC article.]
TTL advices:
I find that people in general are not interested in solutions. It is the problems they are excited about. When you present people with a simple and true solution to any big problem, they go all quiet and quickly change the subject. On the other hand, if you only talk about the problem their eyes lit up and they start 'sympathising' with you. Some people get so excited about reiterating the problem and calling for a solution that foam comes out of their mouth.
I find that people in general are not interested in solutions. It is the problems they are excited about. When you present people with a simple and true solution to any big problem, they go all quiet and quickly change the subject. On the other hand, if you only talk about the problem their eyes lit up and they start 'sympathising' with you. Some people get so excited about reiterating the problem and calling for a solution that foam comes out of their mouth.
16 comments:
Very interesting points! You've given me something to think about here, Eolake. I take certain precautions on the net -- such as keeping my home address out of the public domain -- but other than those few precautions, I consider myself a fairly open person.
Does it improve my quality of life? Well, in my offline life, where I'm even more open than I am on the net, I believe it has improved my friendships to take a "what you see is what you get" approach.
Most secrets lead to the dark. If what you say are true Mr Stobblehouse please give me your bank account number and pin code, also your home address your mother's maiden name, your fears, all your hopes and dreams, ect.
Privacy is common courtesy as well. The world's Prince (Satan) would love nothing more than a complete "open society" where even your most precious thoughts are exposed.
It's naive to believe otherwise. We're not living in Mayfield where Beaver Cleaver is our neighbor, or Mr. Rogers is our teacher at school.
That world never really existed anyway. It was all make-believe.
I know you mean't well, but sadly it doesn't jel with our current dark society.
I think to some extent, you pretty much find the world you expect.
For instance: If you expect the world to be a dark, evil place, then you will likely find that aspect of the world more often than not.
On the other hand, if you act with reasonable openness to others, you will most likely attract people who are themselves open. At least, that seems to have largely been my experience.
Mine too, Paul. More and more.
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In an open, free, and communicative world, the Darkness would die like a vampire in sunlight.
I am glad to see you touch this subject.
I, too, find this a very challenging issue. But I believe there is no way going back.
U.K. has 1.4 million CCTV cameras. More are installed every day. Eventually we will all be able to view every street corner in the world from our web browsers. In high-definition! The CCTV imagery will be combined with satellite data (as seen in Google Earth) into a fully navigatable live 3D view. We will be able to 'bookmark' places and people, and set our computer to alert us when a certain person is at a certain spot. etc. etc.
In the coming years our life experience will be redefined with regards to exposure. It is no longer a political issue, but part of our technical/spiritual evolution.
The question is, what's the best strategy to take in these transitory times? Try to hold on to our last bits of privacy? Or start practising coming to terms with exposure? Or even start exploiting it (after all, exposure = marketing) ?
"The world's Prince (Satan) would love nothing more than a complete "open society" where even your most precious thoughts are exposed."
FD,
I can't find the exact reference, but I clearly remember the Gospel saying that "no secrets shall remain, all which is hidden shall be exposed, all that is written shall be revealed".
Jesus himself officially knew everything about everybody.
I think the only true reason why privacy is necessary among humans is because of the tendancy of many of us to various evils: theft, judgementalism, blackmail, violence...
There is no truth which will harm you if you reveal it to a pure soul. You may ask me: "what about confessing a crime that you committed?".
Well, in such a case, you are already hurt in your soul by the crime, aren't you? A pure heart will not denounce you to the authorities if you confess and acknowledge you did wrong, since this is the mark of repentance. He/she may advise that you give yourself up, but that's quite different.
And if you reveal a crime which you do not regret and would readily harm another innocent again, then in a true humane regime you would be essentially kept from doing so, ensuring you yourself receive as little unjust suffering as possible.
Our need as human mortals is to ensure our safety. This is the only valid reason for our Judges. Only God should pass moral judgement on one's life and its eventual retribution. Our place is to contribute to mutual education, not to grant ourselves the authority to sanction. (Under what right, I ask you?)
So, basically, we still need to keep some things private, although fundamentally it is an abnormal thing, because there are evil people whou would immediately use the power given by that knowledge to hurt you in some way, or simply get to your money. While a good person would love to gain such knowledge to help you. I know I try to live by that principle.
You may have noticed that some people on this blog told us about being abused. This is a perfect example of revealing the private. It is very brave, first because reminiscing such a trauma is very painful, and second because you entrust other people with a knowledge that could very easily be exploited to hurt you. Fortunately, no pitiful soul yet has claimed that the fault lies on the one getting abused. Not on this blog. But it happens all the time in real life, as illustrated by one of the testimonies on this page.
I find this revolting. If EVERYTHING about EVERYBODY was visible to all, I trust there would be very few sorry souls to cast the first stone. In an ideal world...
We do not live in such an ideal world. But we sure can thrive to get closer to it.
A world where our truly most precious thoughts were exposed would probably be a world of beauty. Truly precious things are beautiful, like love. But this implies that everybody give and receive. It is incompatible with greed, selfishness, hunger for power and domination...
In some countries, it is not only illegal to be naked, it is fiercely prohibited for a woman to let her hair be seen, or just her face, or even her eyes. It is decreed as "obscene", meant of course as a sexually charged sight which may soon lead to public orgies in the streets if left unchecked.
I try to live with a naked soul. Eventually, I'll "cover up" when I meet somebody who'd resent this form of nakedness, or is not ready for it, or would try to hurt me because of it. But spiritually, I'm a nudist. "After all, we're all made the same, aren't we?"
And this contributes to the spirit of mutual trust and openness we're trying to build here, where somebody who'd been abused and hurt in the most intimate way will dare reveal it because they know, or simply trust, that this truth will be respected in return.
So yeah, I *am* suggesting that this blog is a microscopic bit of utopia. :-)
Call me a hopeless dreamer.
Eolake said...
"In an open, free, and communicative world, the Darkness would die like a vampire in sunlight."
Ooh! Beautiful!
Reminds me of the final segment in the original Fantasia, where the sinister/grotesque demons shrivel under the daylight and crawl back to their hellish pit in shame. Because they cannot bear their own hideous sight.
TTL said...
"The CCTV imagery will be combined with satellite data (as seen in Google Earth) into a fully navigatable live 3D view."
Unless, of course, you are a hairy terrorist wanting to view classified data that everybody knows about anyway. Like the layout of the U.S. President's swimming-pool, with the obvious intent of sneaking in to take a pee in the water... and the world shall never be the same after that abominable day! ;-)
"(after all, exposure = marketing)"
Yep, as I said, at some point the commercial use of private information must become limited by the law. Or we'll spend half our lives just sorting out our true mail from mountains of spam, for example.
fallen darkness,
Consider that bank accounts are an invention of man. They exist because of the way our society is structured. In the kind of world Eo's talking about, they may not be necessary. If everyone is completely open, if they share everything, why not share resources and objects as well? I can't imagine ownership would remain a sacred cow in such a world.
That said, I think there needs to be a balance. I don't think I'd like having my every thought and deed recorded and on display before the world. I need a place to retreat where I can be alone and think in peace. It is not because I wish to hide from the world. In fact, most of what I do behind closed doors I expose of my own free will somewhere down the road. I don't tell people everything about me but I don't withhold details if something's relevant when relating to a particular person. "You know, I've had very similar thoughts on that subject..." or "I've gone through exactly the same thing. Let me tell you how I dealt with it..." are things I'm quite likely to say.
I liken it to a crowded party. Everybody who's anybody is there, and everybody who's nobody is a somebody for the night. It's loud, there's lots of chatter, laughter is heard echoing above the crowd, drowning out the pulsing beat of the music. The energy level is so high you feel invigorated just from being inside the building. But as good of a time as it is, it doesn't hurt to occasionally step out onto the balcony where the moon's shining down and the cool breeze caresses your skin. It's a quiet place free of distraction. You can just enjoy the fresh air or have a good smoke or write down a few ideas buzzing through your head. Hell, if you're feeling a bit frisky it's the perfect place to take that pretty girl you've been eying from across the room all night. ;) It's not an unknown location but few venture there, and if they do and someone else is already there they either walk away or stay silent out of respect for the other person.
The problem is not that there are shadows, it's that they're used to conceal shameful things no one would expose to the light of day. So long as places like the balcony I described above exist within the world to come, I'll be content. (And if they don't I'll just have to build one.)
"That said, I think there needs to be a balance. I don't think I'd like having my every thought and deed recorded and on display before the world."
In an ideal world, nobody would care/bother to scrutinize you. I mean, how many people in the West spend their time trying to get a glimpse of a woman's hair, face or eyes every time they pass by one in the street? Which would be quite expectable in Kabul or Riyad or Islamabad... And I bet it would make the women there uncomfortable to think of being stared at all the time.
Similarly, the paranoid fear of predators makes it that today, simply looking at a child in a public place and smiling because he/she's cute and innocent could make you feel suspicious to some worried parents. Understandable, but way excessive.
Animals wear no clothes. And they don't spend their time looking at each other's privates.
Okay, except for dogs sniffing each other you-know-where, but it's not what you might think. Really, it's not. They're just being friendly, honest!
"So long as places like the balcony I described above exist within the world to come, I'll be content. (And if they don't I'll just have to build one.)"
That's probably how the first one was built. :-)
I love balconies at parties. Not to hide, just for the peace.
Dr. Pascal prescribed: "Yep, as I said, at some point the commercial use of private information must become limited by the law."
Are you sure? Are you sure that it must, and that it is even possible?
By "exposure = marketing", I meant that in order to make our offerings known to the world, we must be willing to expose ourself. The fact that this exposure makes us targets of messages from others is just natural symmetry.
"Or we'll spend half our lives just sorting out our true mail from mountains of spam, for example."
Spam is an easy problem to solve. I solved it many years ago. Metaspam is slightly more difficult. I'm working on it now. (Metaspam = messages about the spam 'problem', and 'solutions' thereof.)
No one can intrude your space unless you let them. Keep in mind that in the coming society where there's no technical privacy, you have the capability to know just as much about the other guy as they know about you.
Also, one thing they know about you is that you are not a user of V1AGRA, so why would they bother sending you messages about it?
Spam means unwanted commercial messages. The only reason it exists is because people's preferences are not publically known.
You solved spam? Why are you not a billionaire?
Eolake inquired: "You solved spam? Why are you not a billionaire?"
The more the media writes about any given pervasive problem, the more imaginary it is and the more valuable it is unsolved. The power structures of the western society (goverment, church, scientific establishment) live off of problems.
I find that people in general are not interested in solutions. It is the problems they are excited about. When you present people with a simple and true solution to any big problem, they go all quiet and quickly change the subject. On the other hand, if you only talk about the problem their eyes lit up and they start 'sympathising' with you. Some people get so excited about reiterating the problem and calling for a solution that foam comes out of their mouth.
So, as many have discovered, it is possible to solve there things for yourself, but not for others. Hence I am a mere hundredaire.
To become a billionaire, it seems you'd have to take the opposite approach and come up with problems. That's were the big money is. Think Microsoft for example.
You have some excellent observations here.
But Steve Jobs and Woz are billionaires too, and they make solutions.
How'd you solve spam?
"Also, one thing they know about you is that you are not a user of V1AGRA, so why would they bother sending you messages about it?"
They bother sending ME offers for buying medications prescription free. Shows how much they know...
In this country, even a "civilian" doesn't need a prescription to buy medications. Except, in theory, for addictive substances. In theory.
You'd think after all these years they would've gotten the hint and stopped mailing in triplicate every other hour: I-don't-need to refinance a loan, to borrow by using a home I don't own, or to improve in any way my very satisfactory pcñi$, thank you very much. And even if I did, I wouldn't trust lurkers who use instantly self-destructing addresses and ghost sites.
Not to mention the address I created for people I meet here and who eventually wanted to write privately. A robot promptly picked it up, and now a tidal wave of various Africans from Ouagadougou (Burki-Nafasso) are asking for my help in retrieving shady millions stuck in some bank account.
(For those who don't know that scam, they somehow need that you lend YOUR account to transfer the millions on it, offering you a nice percentage. But those who fell for it were told that there were some "local administrative problems", which basically needed a pay-off to solve. Which you have to help with. You'll get a hefty return on your "investment", which will come when pigs fly F-16 fighter jets over Mecca.)
Okay, end of rant. So, basically, what I mean is you need a law-guaranteed freedom that you won't be hounded with commercial "offers", dubious or otherwise, except on an address you approved for such a use. The law should ensure in your life the sacred right for the quiet balcony.
In Philip K. Dick's The Simulacra dystopian future, there are miniature robotic insects that are in reality advertisings. They enter your home, car, or office, and start buzzing and hammering their relentless messages, which are far worse than a recording, more like a nagging artificial intelligence, and even uses hypnosis and advanced psychology to exploit one's weaknesses. People have to gun then down to have some peace.
France recently made a law that puts a tax on the printed advertizing that gets distributed in people's mailboxes. The idea is that those who make money out of it must finance the recycling of all that wasted paper, not the community.
Transparency would be a good thing. Provided it is illegal to bother people precisely by abusing that transparency. So yes, law is needed. I've seen it tens of times: a known figure gets under investigation for some presumed charges, and it's all over the media. Later they get cleared, but "it's not interesting news", so a majority of people will never know that Whatshisname actually was perfectly innocent because they don't investigate by themselves. Good-bye reputation, with all the consequences. And what about the ordinary citizen that isn't rich and powerful enough to demand that the media officially clear them after dragging them in the mud?
Too much "information" kills genuine information. (More noise means less voice.) Public figures and celebrities are already living with little to no privacy, in a world that makes such a state a hostile place to live in.
My (hopefully) deeply moving plea to you all is: boycott tabloids. Say no to sleazy voyeurism, judge not lest thou be judged the same.
Have you seen this very surprizing segment in Bowling for Columbine, where we see that Canadians indeed do not lock their homes? Anybody could come in. But in their well-mannered country, not anybody WILL. Only those who know they'd be welcome, or the highly respected police.
Which answers the second part of the question: yes, it is possible. To live in an open-door society where politeness and law will ensure that one can still enjoy peace.
"France recently made a law that puts a tax on the printed advertizing that gets distributed in people's mailboxes."
Denmark has a good solution: you can register with the post office and get sticker saying no thanks to bulk mail. The bulk mailers can override it in theory, but they all respect it, why waste mail?
Yes, an ideal solution.
In civilized countries.
Eolake: "But Steve Jobs and Woz are billionaires too, and they make solutions."
True. Although, to be fair, they do make some problems too.
For example, on the Mac, if I want to upgrade an application, say Final Cut, I often need to first upgrade the operating system.
In contrast, on other Unix like operating systems (which Macos also is), the new version of the application simply includes the new components the application depends on. No big deal.
Further, in some cases on the Mac platform in order to perform the required OS update, I first need to buy a new computer!
In contrast, on many other Unix like systems, current applications can still run on the i386 processors from the early 1990s. Just slower.
But in general, I agree, Apple at least attempts to solve rather than create problems. And often they succeed.
"How'd you solve spam?"
I was thinking of writing an article about this. I'll let you know.
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