justthink
The persecutions and travails which I wish to avoid are all too common in human history. The transparency you seek has never existed and is as hypothetical as the utopian fantasy you imagine that it will create.
I’m all for dreaming and for chasing dreams, but I will not sacrifice my security for a dream I feel has no chance of becoming reality. You are welcome to your vision, but I will keep my privacy.
What about turning this problem on its head? Look at it this way; the moment all of the corporations and the state wish to become transparent, so will I. If they open the books, all of them, so will I. No more top secret appropriations, closed board meetings and so forth.
I guess the point is this; things like the Patriot bill and other measures that erode the privacy of the individual are not only a bad deal for the person, but on the whole we are in trouble if privacy becomes a privilege available only to some classes.
Binarydrone – my point exactly.
Spiritus mundi - Thank you for recognizing my point, though i agree to disagree =P
-Justhink
It’s about thought transparency… though that is clearly a ways away. I’d imagine that calling a specific body and perimeter sound projections holgraphically and monitoring it wouldn’t be to far away though.
Thoughts are not crimes… thoughts are not illegal, you cannot help having thoughts here unless you are dead (I don’t know about after that). What a person does with those thoughts goes on records, the actions they take are where crime comes into the picture. Those records are vital to all of us; not just corperations and government officials… it lets democracy and evolution work in action. It lets all of us see where each side is coming from so that we can all make the decision for ourselves without having to take someone elses word for it. The ability to add transparency will grow… our lack of access to that ability is decreasing. It’s as silly for me not to be able to look at the Presidents record (drivers liscence number is now 00000000005 with all past records wiped) as it is for sports officials to not use the instant replay to judge a call. It is non-transparency where we clearly have the transparency to impliment; it is where corruption lives and breathes. Transparency is the key to democracy… nothing else. If people cannot handle seeing what it is that they do, then people cannot inherently handle living as a species. We live in a society where nudity is pornography; a resource to be manipulated by outlawing nudity. That is how the west won; so to speak. Controlling the flow of regenerative resources and inventing perversions. If someone wants to bring up a holographic of me and get off on it… that’s fine by me; because I’ll know who they are and can equally observe them myself. Obviously people just don’t have the time to sit and watch you all day… and as long as they’re not killing you or have had made contacts to interfere with your time as opposed to an image of you and your time; why should you care? Why would you care?
Why do you not want to let people know who you are and what you think and what you do? What are you hiding, or so afraid of?
That you might be wrong about something? We all are… transparency helps us to learn what it means to be. It gives us all a say and it gives us all a window… it is the ideal of democracy.
This bill BTW… is not an ideal of democracy… it gives this transparency to those who have virtually no accountability. What if a local area cop gets obsessed with a local area resident? I’m sure their ability to excersize their perversions and psychoses has just scored a TD! You on the otherhand don’t have the right to know when they look you up, who looks you up, what they read and why. That is definately a crime on humanity.
-Justhink
The latest erosions of privacy give the lie to the Republicans’ claim that they’re going to have less government. It’s only half true at best. They’ll reduce the things that government does for you. But they’ll increase the things the government does to you.
My neurons aren’t all firing in sequence yet, so I’ll staty out of the debate for now. But I did want to address one thing. (BTW: I started a thread about drug testing over at Fathom.)
It has been illegal to convert a pistol or any firearm to fire automatically for about 70 years unless you have received approval from the BATF. Since just a few years ago, no new conversions are allowed. But talking about it is not illegal. There are booklets available that describe in detail how to modify a number of firearms to fire automatically (e.g. Full Auto: AR-15) that even have “blueprints” so you can make your own parts. You can buy these books, read them, discuss the process with anyone, post the information on the internet… whatever. Just don’t try to make the parts they describe.
For example, an AR-15 requires six parts to turn it into an M-16. A book has orthographic drawings and measurements so that you can make a drop-in automatic sear. You may not have any of the other parts, or even the rifle itself; but as soon as you make the sear, you’ve violated the law and are looking at 20 years in prison.
We still have a First Amendment right to talk about illegal activities; we just can’t act on the discussion. One thing I’m not clear on is this: When does planning a bank robbery, for example, cross the line from a mental exercise (protected by the First Amendment) to conspiracy (a crime)? I’m guessing it involves intent.
So if you do not intend to rob a bank, you should have the right to talk about it without the government hauling off to jail.
Your plan to rob a bank becomes a crime, specifically attempted robbery, and if anyone else is involved, conspiracy to commit robbery, when any of the participants makes an overt act toward actually committing the crime. Let’s say your plan involves wearing clown makeup and stealing a car to go to the bank. Putting on the clown makeup would not make the plan a crime, as it is perfectly legal to wear clown makeup any time and place you please. Once you try to steal the car, you have committed a crime that is part of your plan to rob the bank, and are thus guilty of attempted car theft, and even if you do not actually ever rob said bank, or even set foot inside it, say if you are caught while trying to boost the car, if it can be proven that you intended to and that stealing the car was part of the plan, you can be convicted of attempted bank robbery.
A few years ago (10-20), a psychotic ex-husband made very detailed plans for travelling cross-country to assault and kill his ex-wife. He made it as far as her doorstep, where he was scared away by a barking dog. He was guilty of trespassing, but was convicted of the more serious crime of attempted murder, even though he at no time was actually in position to do the lady involved any harm.
“If you have nothing to hide . . .”
Ah, but I do have things I want to hide.
Ever seen “The Crucible”?
This is the same logic the puritan witch hunters and the McCarthyist superpatriot Orwellian assholes used.
The idea that “only the bad people need to worry about this” is such a crock of shit! It makes it impossible to stand up to ANYTHING, because only those who have something to hide would be against [insert thing here]. If you aren’t in favor of [insert thing here] you are a BAD person and bad people don’t deserve rights. If you want rights you don’t deserve them because you probably work for the terrorists/the communists/the devil/MARTHA FUCKING STEWART/WHATEVER!!!
Do you see? This is what we’re already falling in to here, it’s gotten worse and worse since 9/11. It’s like the goddamned 50’s the goddamned 1600’s the goddamned dark ages and the future all over again and at once…
America is GOOD. It’s a bastion of FREEDOM. We’re not fighting our enemies, no no, we’re fighting EVIL. This is a good vs. evil fight, you’re not on the side of evil, are you? ARE YOU EVIL?? If not, then why would you want to read that book that’s critical of America (the forces of good)? Well you certainly can’t defend that book, that would put you on the side of evil, on the side of “the terrorists”. When you can’t defend that book, it goes away. Everything GOES AWAY. The dissent goes away! In defending our freedom, are we going to give it all up? What is this? AAAAAHHHH!! Are you a “terrorist”? How do you know?
Do you know for sure that you haven’t read anything that they would call “subversive”? Do you disagree with them? Are you a threat to national security?
They can already do anything they want in this country just by declaring that [insert YOU(?) here] had ties to terrorism. Supported terrorism. Was suspected of terrorism. That’s a terrorist organization. We bombed the shit out of that town because we had rumors of known terrorists. Anyone could be a terrorist. How do you know what a terrorist is? The USA tells you. If the USA tells you that you are a terrorist, can you disagree with them? NO. They’re good. You’re evil… you don’t stand a fucking chance not a chance not a fucking chance NO!
When criticism, “subversiveness” makes you evil, there’s no freedom left. When being FREE is a terrorist act I WILL BE A TERRORIST! When I’m a terrorist they’ll be free to do as they please to me and you, all of you every one of the blood red white and blue will be behind them because you can’t be a terrorist. You can’t be evil, not evil like the subversives, not the terrorists.
I AM AFRAID. I am so very afraid of what may happen. I am so very very afraid.
I think al lot of the opinions expressed so far have been based on a distrust of authority.
Would anybody be against lack of privacy on general principle? Or is it the fear of how personal information will be used?
What I mean by that is suppose there is a government body called the ministry of information. It collected every conceivable bit of data about you. However, it had no interest or knowledge of you personally. It was basically just a giant computer performing statistical analysis on everyone. When it finds out that an individual has done something potentially illegal it sends people to investigate who again have no personal interest or grudge with you. Further suppose that laws and enforcement are agreeable to the general population (eg. they don’t really care if someone has been smoking pot. If they find out you are addicted to crack, they don’t throw you in jail, but help you get treatment.)
In this case although you have no privacy, the information is gathered and acted upon by completely disinterested parties, your neighbour will never know.
Or why I don’t talk polititics much.
Besides my gut reaction that says “keep out! some things are personal and no-one’s business but mine…”
"Privacy" is a bit of a misnomer. Our right to privacy is actually a prohibition on government searches. It’s the “right to be secure against…unreasonable searches and seizures”. (Fourth Amendment)That isn’t a loophole designed to say “nah, we don’t really want to be hard on minor illigalities, and you should be able to hide potentially embarassing personal information.” Privacy in this sense means the Group has its arena- the world of public affairs, which includes business,workplace, and your friendly schoolbus driver (or you, if you’re the schoolbus driver) being required to take a drug test. The individual has theirs-their personal property and person. I think this is sensible.
Anarchists and Libertarians to a lesser extent want the Individual’s authority to be supreme. Since I, as an individual, am currently outnumbered by all you other individuals, I respectfully think that’s taking personal freedom/privacy too far.
On the other side, saying “why care if you have nothing to hide” by default makes the Group’s authority supreme.
If you do want to have your Group conform to certain standards of behavior (let’s call them “laws”), there logically has to be sort of Group decision/enforcement process. (or “Government”, if you like).
Some of the ways people have made Group decision are to vote then decide by comittee (democracy) or dictate (dictatorship springs to mind), or theoretically decide things by comittee, but the comittee only does what they are dictated to do (communism). And all of them necessarily involves only a smaller subset of the Group ironing out the details of how everyone involved will live. (Let’s call that subset “authority”. I personally do not trust authority. Authority is not there to be trusted. It is to be wielded, questioned, submitted to or reigned in. It’s not much for detail work, and, being massive, has a certain inertia. A chainsaw comes to mind -a very useful tool. Not so much for dental work.).
When it comes to the individual person and their individual property- which isn’t shared social space, and doesn’t need to have any greater authority than the individual, our democracy says that the individual no longer need accept intrusion by “authority”.
I think it’s extremely sensible.
And I don’t consider John Ashcroft wiser than the writers of this fine amendment, no matter how right with his God he may find himself to be.
ahem
that link was sposed to be this one…Fourth Amendment
No, the main purpose of privacy is to be able to lead your own life without every action being recorded by a third party that might not have your best interestes at heart. In a free society, the correct question is not ‘why should we prevent the government from doing this’, it’s ‘why should we allow the government to do this’. Your position also takes a rather staggering amount of blind trust in the goodwill of the police - do you really believe that law enforcement agencies NEVER do anything wrong? If you don’t believe that, then you can’t possibly agree with allowing them unrestricted access to all aspects of every person’s life.
After all, what if I want to do something legal that the authorities don’t want me to do? Say I’m black, a member of a civil rights group, and living in Mississippi in the '50s. Do you really think I should trust the local police to monitor all of my conversations and NOT happen to mention when various members of my civil rights organization will be alone to the local KKK chapter? Considering that a few Mississippi sherriffs took it into their own hands to deal with a few of the more uppity blacks back then (actually, the case I’m thinking of may have been in the 60s), I really don’t see how one could believe that they are all above any suspicion.
Or what about the cop who raped a woman who called 911 just recently? Do you think that we would all be better off if he could monitor any woman in the city and find a night when she’d be at home alone?
I disagree with the ideas regarding people with alterior motives observing virtual representations of your time; being the reason why privacy is needed. Does it not occur to you that tracking can be places on every virtual record and alert you when your records are being veiwed, by whom and for what reason?
The ability to wipe out groups based on prejudice is only going to increase with time. If we’re not already there; I’m sure we’re pretty damn close to having ethnicity extermination biological weapons. It may seem to far off for you to care, but eventually those weapons will equally be created for exterminating thought patterns. Thought-ism is after all the only -ism around; privacy just ensures its continuation. Eventually, unillateral transparency provides all of us the means to observe who is taking an interest in our lives and why… to backtrack and veiw their virtaully stored actions and determine whether this is something worth showing everyone so public decisions can be made with verifiable data, as to the treatment of those who are veiwing your records in an illegal fashion. To me; as long as somebody is only observing your virtual time (records, documents, recordings, body etc…) and not your real time against your consent; then violation and illegality comes into the picture. ‘Privacy’ is non-transparency; this is a cesspool for corruption… those who are corrupt depend on this very state to exist. Do you really think that if everyone could watch everyone and anyone at any given time and know when and who was observing them at any given time, people would really be that judgemental of you? Gimme a break, you’re not that shameful or that special…
-Justhink
Justthink, if you will accept privacy on no other basis, at least consider this:
Many times, those with ideas which you and I would consider to be beneficial and good were initially scorned, even persecuted. In a world where everyone knows everything about everyone else, people will more than likely be unwilling to take chances, take part in radical movements, etc. While this would perhaps eliminate some “undesireable” groups that spead things like hate, it would also stifle progressive ideas and inhibit social and potentially scientific progress. This would not occur out of government corruption, but out of the human inability to consistently accept new ideas.
People like Galileo and MLK, Jr. were persecuted. I don’t think their ideas would have gone very far in the kind of society you mentioned.
Uh-huh. Give me a cite for the ‘ethnicity extermination biological weapons’ and the similar ones for ‘exterminating thought pattersn’. From your latest post, it’s clear that you’re arguing about some abstract idea and not a contcrete proposal and are completely unconcerned with the damage it will cause people on the path to your utopia (somehow, I think the ‘citizen cessation of privacy’ will occur before the ‘government cessation of privacy’ in practice). Unless you’re going to at least argue for your utopia using examples drawn from the real world, I see no point in trying to debate with you - if every post is going to involve some imaginary ‘ethnicity extermination biological weapons’, then I may as well start citing Doc Smith’s (the original space opera writer) books as counters to your arguments.
I would also note that you seem to want to be something of a missionary about the ‘transparent society’. Using imaginary biological weapons to convince people of your arguments isn’t going to convince anyone to believe your other claims.
John Doe appreciates the privacy that he still has. A person like John needs a certain amount of privacy. Privacy helps John to live his life his way…even if his way is in violation of laws, ordinances, or statutes.
John rues the day that the combination of government and technology becomes so effective that his privacy is totally eliminated. Until then he will continue to run his life as he sees fit…even if he violates some laws along the way.
So there you have it. The big deal with privacy is that it makes it easier for John Doe to be able to run his life illegally and get away with it.
For example’s sake, I’ll provide a short list of his crimes. His crimes include (but are not limited to):
Smoking marijuana and/or eating magic mushrooms
Disobeying posted speed limits
Disobeying seatbelt laws
Taking an extra newspaper from the newspaper box
Claims fiticious charitable deductions
Spanks his children
Fails to obtain booster vaccine for his pet
John appreciates that privacy allows for the commision of his crimes.
Privacy is a big deal. John doesn’t want to forfeit his privacy and observes that his government seems to cherish their privacy as well. Perhaps they share a common motivation.
This is tough to comment on, because it ultimately requires me to know something that I cannot claim to know… that thing being:
In all the instances of persecution… people really were prejudiced in a mass sense because that’s the way they were OR those people were susceptable to the propoganda of institutions that knew the data was true, but would corner or stifle their market… in which case transparency would dissolve this. This is that odd ‘faith’ I was talking about earlier… I must admit, that I’m not much for faith… but I’m a huge fan of ‘truth…’ and whatever that religion may entail. I guess I just assume that if people can see things for themselves, that the mind ultimately chooses truth over falsity. That is certainly a faith-based opinion with quite a bit of circumstantial evidence on both sides… I think the evidence for truth exceptance is ‘better’, so I side with that veiw. This is a serious concern however… though it implies that technology implies some sort of inherent progressive meaning; which may not be the case… maybe we just yearn for peace.
-Justhink
I can’t qualify this statement at the moment with a link, because I don’t recall thinking the idea before this last reply… I do know enough about genetic progress to understand that you should be able to create a virus which decimates ethicity levels past a certain percentage cut-off… If you’re under 10% caucasian, or asian or ‘black-sian’ =), hispanic or whatever… you can be made safe, but anything over triggers extermination. They could focus the weapon on the downs syndrome, or sicle cell anemia or whatever that are etnicity specific, or maybe something even more fundamental that is ethnicity specific. It seems to me, that such a weapon is extremely probable.
-Justhink
Jane Doe used to appreciate the privacy that she once had.
A person like Jane needs a certain amount of privacy.
Privacy no longer helps Jane to live her life her way…even when her way is in accordance with all laws, ordinances, and statutes.
Jane has rued the day that the combination of government and technology became so effective that her privacy has been significantly reduced. She will no longer be able to continue to run her life as she sees fit…even though she wasn’t violating any laws along the way.
So there you have it. The big deal with taking away privacy is that it makes it easier for the government to be able to run Jane’s life illegally and get away with it.
For example’s sake, I’ll provide a short list of what the government thought were her crimes. Her alleged crimes include (but are not limited to):
Not allowing someone to watch over her as she was forced to urinate into a small cup in order to become a member of the school band
Taking out a newspaper from the newspaper box that promotes a negative opinion of the government and has articles containing what the goverment considers “harmful”
Raises her children in a manner she sees fit
Objects to giving her children a certain vaccine because of the harmful side effects she believes it may have
Does not allow airport security to take nude pictures of her as she attempts to board an airplane
Jane used to appreciate the privacy that allowed her to live her life without unreasonable government searches.
Privacy is a big deal. Jane didn’t want to forfeit her privacy and observes that her government seemed to cherish their privacy as well. Perhaps they used to share a common belief in the Constitution
The thing that bothers me the most about some of the so-called “privacy advocates” I meet is their often hypocritical stance. They wail loudly about how they just want to be left alone, and yet will turn a blind eye to criminal acts, blatantly and willfully violating the privacy of others, which occur under their own nose and with their implicit support. All under the guise of it being “not their business”. :rolleyes:
Well, tough fucking shit. Privacy is as privacy does. Start respecting the privacy of others for once, and your privacy will be respected in turn.