Yesterday I sighed about what we might as well call the “self-surveillance state”* — the growing culture of cool-tech that seduces people into adopting (and paying for!) the very technology that the Big Brother state and Little Brother corporations use to spy on them.
The first comment on that post came from David, who also sighed: “There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle … and the sort of societal shift that would include protecting privacy of any sort seems increasingly unlikely.”
He nailed it on the genie and bottle. And we’re certainly undergoing a tech-driven societal shift toward self-surveillance. It seems inexorable. But is it?
So this weekend’s freedom question is: Can a culture of privacy thrive beside the growing culture of self-revelation? If so, what will be the implications of that?
Subsidiary questions come to mind: Will privacy-loving old fogies die off leaving only self-surveillers behind? Or will a new generation (think Anonymous, Wikileaks, young censorship fighters, etc.) wrap themselves in privacy and develop even better privacy tools? Will law enforcement focus on the low-hanging fruit of people who reveal all via smartphones, social media, and shivery future tech — or will cops be more motivated to dig into the lives of we who “obviously have something to hide”? What are the cultural implications of having millions of self-surveillers living side-by-side with a smaller number who increasingly struggle to maintain privacy? Could some data catastrophe finally wake people up to what they’re doing to themselves? If privacy is crucial to freedom, as IndividualAudienceMember commented, what becomes of us if we can’t keep it?
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* I’m pretty sure I’ve just coined a new term there; let’s see if it catches on. OTOH, I’d be happier if we didn’t need such a term.
I believe there will always be those who value privacy, but they will be an extreme minority. It is still possible to participate in internet conversations under an alias. If a single person uses a dozen aliases and is careful her aliases can remain unconnected. It is good to kill your aliases on a regular basis and invent new ones. Of course nothing is proof against the full weight of the government should one of your aliases become a person of interest. It does get harder as time passes. Nothing to be done about that I guess. People who want privacy will have to take it just like people who like freedom have to take it. Nobody gives it away.
Privacy has always been about zipping one’s lips… NOT doing something to attract attention…
if I’m required to fill out profiles – I either make up some smart-A answers or don’t sign up…
most of the time, I don’t put anything about me out there.
Now, ‘scuse me, I gotta go reset the “home” setting on my car’s nav to the Walmart down the street…
What Woody says.
Think small town–have you ever lived in one? Everyone knows most of everyone’s business and average folks don’t mind. I gives them a connection to the community.
There are always a few who value their privacy; they get “talked about” and don’t fully fit in. Often, they’re the first suspects whenever anything bad happens. But these eccentrics are also, in their own way, valued by the community. Many people, especially women, like a mystery. The private people will be defended against outsiders.
A problem today is that the outsider who attacks “our” eccentrics is usually the state. And “we” are constantly encouraged to think of the state as “us,” not an outsider.
Privacy cannot safely live alongside self-surveillance as long as the average person worships the state.
Unless you’re very good at it, and the “neighbors” never suspect that they really don’t know you at all.
Young people have been taught to put their lives on display, indeed, they crave it. Their “15 minutes of fame,” played out repeatedly. Most of them crave constant individual attention, in part because they are taught in public schools that everyone is the same, everyone is okay, everyone is special. Nobody rises above the pack,
As long as people (especially older folks who aren’t awake) are kept afraid of the latest terr-ists, and the young are continually brainwashed to think that everyone knowing their business makes them cool, they’ll give up their privacy.
I don’t think a culture of privacy will live side-by-side with the surveillance state on a large scale. (Some older folks who value freedom will seek to stay private, of course.) My hope is that someday the younger folks will get sick of this way of life and resurrect freedom and privacy.
Claire, I don’t think there is a “culture of privacy”, and probably hasn’t been since the days of the Wild, Wild West when people knew how to mind their own business and everyone fought their own battles in individual confrontation. The attitude of questioning one’s right to his own beliefs began after the South lost The War Between The States. Respect for privacy, and acknowledgment of others’ right to their own “space”, lost its impetus when manners went out the window in the 1960s; when the fight for civil rights became UN-civil; when students and feminists and anti-war protesters refused to listen to the opposition; when politicos refused to acknowledge the rights of people to decide how America should be run, picked up the pace of threat and violence and, in the name of equality (and security), began wildly passing social (and un-Constitutional) laws.
As to the questions:
“Will privacy-loving old fogies die off leaving only self-surveillers behind?”
Probably.
“Will law enforcement focus on the low-hanging fruit of people who reveal all via smartphones, social media, and shivery future tech — or will cops be more motivated to dig into the lives of we who “obviously have something to hide”?”
They will do both – but they are lazy and greedy, and will probably concentrate on the former method by letting technology do the work for them. (At least at the local level; the FBI and Secret Service will look for those who have “something to hide.”) Law enforcement already has put hundreds/thousands in prison for drugs and minor offences… SWAT-ting houses (without warrants) rather than going after individuals by name… assuming guilt of everyone… using bully tactics and fear rather than reasoning or listening… disencouraging jury trials and applying automatic sentences rather than showing any concern for the truth or innocence of the defendant. All of this is a way to obtain money for their coffers in the quickest manner without working at it.
“Could some data catastrophe finally wake people up to what they’re doing to themselves?”
If it does it will come through the medical database. (I find it ironic that the very program supposedly designed for privacy – HIPPA – is the one system that can be used for the grand database of nosiness.) People probably will not tolerate a medical catastrophe of major proportions. Kicking a person when he’s down, so to speak, is anathema to even the most sheepish of us.
I’ve seen reports that government snoops consider having a Facebook page and NOT having a Facebook page to be “suspicious behavior”.
The way I see it, post what you want online but keep the important stuff to yourself. If you look like you are exposing yourself perhaps they won’t look for the stuff you keep secret. Or, maybe they will. Who can think like one who is so thoroughly perverted?
Privacy, much like Freedomissubjective and means different things to different people. Often, privacy is defined by other people. Even before we had horribly intrusivegovernment we had privacy issues. If you lived in a small town with party-lines or a busy-body gossip, privacy was limited. Any thing I did in public was probably going to make its way back to my parents, especilly if I was misbehaving. Students have never expected privacy in school.
Mostpeople will decide on their preffered level of privacy and work to achieve it.
“If privacy is crucial to freedom, as IndividualAudienceMember commented, what becomes of us if we can’t keep it?”
Antecedent denied, and so the question is irrelevant. Socially, freedom is about–ONLY about–absence of thuggery.
It never was about privacy; it’s about others having the motivation and means to mess with your life. Create a world without (initiatory) thuggery and nobody will give a hoot what anyone else is doing. They’ll be too busy living their own.
Besides, the genie of information ain’t going back in the bottle. Happily, that sword cuts both ways.
Thuggery is not required to end privacy. If everyone else suddenly decided to deny your privacy in every way they could do so without resorting to thuggery:
“… The individual is characterized as: lone, outsider, selfish,greedy, inhumane, petty. Turn him into an exile, excommunicated from the great body of humanity.” …
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/the-attempt-to-destroy-the-individual/
Privacy is not about zipping one’s lips… it’s about being an individual. Deny the ability to be an individual and you wipe out privacy and vise versa.
Think small town–have you ever lived in one? Yes, and when you close your front door you should have privacy, you don’t today, anywhere.
RickB wrote, “Everyone knows most of everyone’s business and average folks don’t mind.”
That’s not been my experience, quite a few average folks mind quite a bit to one degree or another.
There is indeed a “culture of privacy”, That’s why states are outlawing certain uses of drones to spy on people in their backyards and through the windows. Or are peeping Tom’s celebrated everywhere?
Matt, another wrote, “Students have never expected privacy in school.”
Really? Why have doors on bathroom stalls then? Why have curtains in the nurse’s room? In my day we expected no one would go through our lockers without due cause and drug sniffing dogs were nothing anyone ever contemplated or expected in any way. No one in my school ever expected to be forced to disrobe for a search. Test results were often expected to be kept private from classmates, Discipline conversations between students and principles, or other conversations between students and counselors were expected to remain behind closed doors. Etc…
“Mostpeople will decide on their preffered level of privacy and work to achieve it.”
What if that’s not permitted or obtainable?
Freedom is NOT “only” about–absence of thuggery.
I think maybe mutual respect is required for freedom, and for privacy, and for the individual to be.
Mutual respect is the glue that holds a society/civilization together, the lack of which is why things are falling apart.
Mutual respect, is that the basis for manners?
Are manners what makes people great?
Does thuggery only thrive when there’s a lack of mutual respect and therefore a lack of manners?
Is manners what stops the small town busy-bodies from gossiping out loud in a crowd and causes them to whisper? Is manners what creates privacy? Or levels of it?
Sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear. The point was that freedom can only be abridged with physical thuggery, period. There’s no other way, that’s all.
Sure, mutual respect commands privacy, but I’m not sure what you intend to do about it if someone doesn’t respect you. Seems to me that doesn’t really matter, as long as they keep their paws to themselves. Personally I don’t care what somebody else thinks; I’m only concerned with what they do. If some guy builds a satellite that watches me from space–I can’t imagine why he would in a free world, but some people are weird–I may not like it, but I surely won’t turn myself into a thug to stop him from doing it.
There’s a reason the NAP (ZAP) is fundamental. Once you start engaging force to stop others from their weirdo acts, in the absence of them using force against you, then you’re right back to where all the madness started in the first place. IOW so-called good reasons to initiate force don’t trump bad reasons. After all, what thug doesn’t believe he has a good reason to initiate force against others?
Technically, in a social context there could be no such thing as a good reason to initiate force, owing to hierarchy of principle. This is why, contra the Objecti-statists, monopoly government is not necessary in a society of rational folk. It’s also why there was none in Rand’s idealized version of a rational community, the Gulch. Few things are as funny as watching “Big-O Objectivists” (I call ’em Inverto-Objectivists) dance around that little tidbit.
“Freedom is NOT ‘only’ about–absence of thuggery.”
Really? Then give an example where a functional, volitional human isn’t free to do as he or she wishes, in the absence of physical force.
A single example will suffice, because there are none. Every movement of every functional human is driven EXCLUSIVELY by the volitional will of his or her mind. The only exceptions are convulsions and sleep-walking. If you deny this, I’m very very interested.
Mutual respect is hardly confined to what people think.
Jim Klein sort of asked, “give an example where a functional, volitional human isn’t free to do as he or she wishes, in the absence of physical force.”
If you so wished, you are not free to join my club.
Also, you didn’t see it in this quote?:
“… The individual is characterized as: lone, outsider, selfish,greedy, inhumane, petty. Turn him into an exile, excommunicated from the great body of humanity.” …
How about reading this and see how shunning works without thuggery:
The Culture of Violence in the American West: Myth versus Reality
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo195.html
Freedom can be abridged without physical thuggery (if it’s wide enough and includes enough people) it works on both sides.
Seems to me the NAP requires mutual respect on both sides. That mutual respect is the basis of the NAP. Without mutual respect there can be no NAP.
A person might be two-faced and think inside they do not have mutual respect for another and yet display mutual respect outwardly. A.k.a. “as long as they keep their paws to themselves.” Ok, fine. I guess?
“After all, what thug doesn’t believe he has a good reason to initiate force against others?”
Manners and mutual respect are missing, forget ‘good reason’.
“IOW so-called good reasons to initiate force don’t trump bad reasons.”
Who said anything about initiating force? Shunning and the rest could/might suffice? In the same way the small town gossip whispers while in a crowd.
Lack of mutual respect precedes physical thuggery. Can’t have one, without first the other.
I’d prefer if you’d address what I say, rather than what you imagine I’m saying. I’m a huge proponent of both mutual respect and shunning. If you wanna redefine “mutual respect” as the NAP, then that’s alright with me, but I think most people make a distinction there; I know I do. I don’t respect the philosophy of racists, for example, but I don’t really give a hoot if they wanna have some racist community and not serve dark-skinned people or Jews at their businesses. The marketplace takes care of errors like that.
Obviously one can’t engage thuggery against another without some lack of mutual respect. Personally I call it an error of identification, since the underlying belief is that one creature is different from the other, when they aren’t. Still, I can easily imagine a world where 7 billion people don’t respect me, and we can still live peaceably among each other. So in my own lingo, I’m stickin’ with respect being something different from thuggery.
Finally, your penultimate sentence makes MY point. Maybe you can’t have thuggery without first having lack of mutual respect, but you CAN have lack of mutual respect without having thuggery. Liberty is about removing thuggery from our interactions, not idiocy.
So we’re back to where I started—“Socially, freedom is about–ONLY about–absence of thuggery.” If you deny, then please be specific and direct. If you don’t, then let’s save the bandwidth.
“Freedom can be abridged without physical thuggery (if it’s wide enough and includes enough people) it works on both sides.”
This is what you’re not addressing. HOW??? Give me an example–ANY example–where a functional adult isn’t free to do as he or she wishes, in the absence of physical coercion. And please don’t distract with threats and such. Surely you understand what I’m saying and if you don’t, just ask.
I addressed what you said. You failed to see it.
I’m not redefining ‘mutual respect’ I said it was the basis of the NAP.
You sure DO respect the philosophy of racists (in a way) you live and let live so long as they don’t encroach upon you. That’s called, mutual respect.
“a world where 7 billion people don’t respect me, and we can still live peaceably among each other.” I’d say that’s not true. They’d walk all over you if they thought they could get away with it. They don’t because they respect you (and several million just like you) who would prevent that from happening.
Of course respect is something different from thuggery, it’s just that a lack of respect is the basis for thuggery. The film, The Godfather is a classic example.
I seriously doubt you CAN have lack of mutual respect without having thuggery.Sooner or later lack of respect leaks out from the mind and becomes physical.
Liberty is – NOT only – about removing thuggery from our interactions. That is the end result. Liberty is about a self-imposed boundary of mutual respect.
You are at liberty to do as you please, I will not stop you unless you infringe upon me. A.k.a. mutual respect.
Also, I often come across as mean, I don’t intend to be, you’re free to join my club if you’re a single woman who adheres to the NAP. A.k.a. lighten up a bit there, Jim. “I’d prefer if you’d address what I say, rather than what you imagine I’m saying… then let’s save the bandwidth” yeesh, is it precious and scarce? I might be attacking your position (a bit) but I’m not attacking you. Ok?
If that’s not ok, … well.
…So I hit refresh before I posted the above and see your latest comment, how are you not getting it? Freedom can be abridged without physical thuggery.
WHEN the F have I EVER distracted you with threats? What the…? Yeesh! Did you read the link? Have you ever been excluded from a party?
You seem hung up on something.
I’ll do what I can to clarify, then be done with it. I meant distract with the TOPIC of threats, not with threats themselves. “I will not stop you unless you infringe upon me” is aka absence of thuggery, not mutual respect. You are mistaken to doubt that you can have absence of respect without having thuggery…it happens all the time. I thought the racist example was a decent one–I could list thousands more just for me–but you’re redefining your way into the matter by saying that I therefore respect the racists. No, I don’t respect them; I just won’t engage thuggery against them. Finally, you are making the simple error of taking a true conditional–“If one engages thuggery, then one has some lack of respect”–and switching the clauses into a false one–“If one has lack of respect, then one will engage thuggery.”
I left my original comment here because it was both on-topic AND it’s a point that nearly all freedomistas overlook. You may either scroll up, reread it and consider it, or just let it go and continue on without the understanding. So except for that particular point, about both the inevitability of lack of privacy and the fact that it bodes no problem for freedom, please take any other differences with me elsewhere; I’m pelletfarmer at the zerogov forum.
“Liberty is about a self-imposed boundary of mutual respect.”
Neat trick. I’d like to see how a “self-imposed” anything can somehow create “mutual” anything. In a free society, the participants agree not to physically coerce one another, basically in a context of property beginning with the Axiom, “I own myself.” They make no other representations or commitments, perhaps least of all about mutual respect.
But also in a free society, you can call it any ol’ thing you want.
Seeing as how it ain’t a free society we’re in, and words have meaning…
J.K. wrote, “you’re redefining your way into the matter by saying that I therefore respect the racists. No, I don’t respect them;”
Dude, wtf is wrong with you? Of course you respect them, AND as I wrote (IN A WAY) – you live and let live – that’s an aspect of respect. Perhaps you’re confusing respecting them with with respecting their ideology?
[BTW, I don’t respect their ideology either.]
J.K. wrote, “the participants agree not to physically coerce one another”
Um, that’s called mutual respect, or at least an aspect of it. At least in my neck of the woods it is. I don’t know about where you’re from, but that’s what it means here.
J.K. wrote, “I will not stop you unless you infringe upon me”
How is that an absence of thuggery? Seems to me, an absence of thuggery is well before that point! “I will not stop?” How about, I will not start? Yeesh, I will not fire the cannon at your house, or, I will not aim a cannon at your house? [That’s a line from a Walter Williams article.]
J.K. wrote, “you are making the simple error of taking a true conditional–”If one engages thuggery, then one has some lack of respect”–and switching the clauses into a false one–”If one has lack of respect, then one will engage thuggery.”
There is no switch, both are true. …Or just about.
Man, if a person thinks it, it’s as if they did it.
Sooner or later they will, too.
It’s not an absolute, it’s just a likelihood.
Um, dude, are you not even watching what you write?:
J.K. wrote, “I’d like to see how a “self-imposed” anything can somehow create “mutual” anything.”
J.K. wrote, ” In a free society, the participants agree not to physically coerce one another,”
That’s ALL called, mutual respect. Or, it’s an aspect of it. Key phrase, “the participants agree” a.k.a. mutual respect! And, it’s ALL self imposed.
Mang, are you just pissed because you can’t be in my club? And, did you read the freaking link?
To answer the question simply…not with the majority, no. But then again, revolutions aren’t fought by majorities, especially not a majority of a bunch of simpletons who have to post a picture of every meal they eat and every funny thing they see… I really do hate my generation. I’m talking about a generation of young people who will read all up on datamining and privacy intrusions and act concerned yet literally go right back to posting their GPS coordinates on facebook just so everyone can know EXACTLY when and where that picture of them doing the duck face was taken. I would understand apathy, cause that’s my problem, but for most of these people it just literally does not register in their minds at all.
winston wrote, “… for most of these people it just literally does not register in their minds at all.”
Lately, the whole deal Jon Rappoport has been describing about how The People have been hypnotized, makes more and more sense.
I count myself lucky to have broken the trance.
I pity those who have not.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
[You sure DO respect the philosophy of racists (in a way) you live and let live so long as they don’t encroach upon you. That’s called, mutual respect.]
I have to disagree, although with all the propaganda out there about this subject I can see why people can get the wrong idea.
What he is talking about is tolerance (in the old-fashioned sense of the word). Tolerance IN NO WAY implies respect; instead it simply says “I will not go to war with you.” If you say to someone, “I will tolerate you,” it is not a friendly statement or one implying respect. In fact, if anything, it implies disrespect.
I wrote an article about tolerance:
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle523-20090614-08.html