Zero Powers wrote:
>
> >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
> >
> >Zero Powers wrote:
> > >
> > > As I've said before, privacy is a thing of the present, not of the
> >future.
> > > I'm sure it will take quite some time for everyone to get on board, but
> >the
> > > only way to real freedom is mutually assured surveillance. Anonymity is
> > > worthless to most law abiding citizens. As fewer legal things become
> > > "taboo" anonymity will be completely worthless, except to criminals.
> >It's
> > > not Orwellian at all. It's me watching you watching me watching Big
> >Brother
> > > watching us all.
> >
> >Big Borther, and all of your neighbors, are watching you....Now you
> >really feel free now, right? "Slavery is freedom." Yup thats 'real
> >freedom' alright.
>
> Well no. No one is watching me now, at least not very closely (at least not
> that I'm aware of). And of course, to the extent that I am being watched
> right now, it does not give me any sense of freedom. But the reason for
> that is that the "watching" is not *mutual*. Mutuality is the key to
> freedom in a transparent society.
>
> If you can watch me and I can (1) know the extent to which you are watching
> me and (2) watch you to the exact same extent. Yes, my friend, that is
> freedom.
Its funny that people like you are the ones who say that Mutual Assured
Destruction is insane, when its the same exact principle. MAD assumes
that
neither party can be trusted, and only the external threat of instant
annihilation is what keeps both parties in check. The MAD strategy
relied
completely on the idea that both sides had to keep as total a level of
surveillance on the others activities as possible.
> Especially for law-abiding folks like myself. See, when you live
> your life with integrity, you have nothing to fear from people watching how
> you live your life. Especially when you know exactly *who* is watching
> exactly *which* parts of your life and you can turn the microscope around
> and watch them right back. An additional benefit of transparency is that it
> encourages people with less integrity (no I'm not pointing any fingers) to
> act in more trustworthy ways.
>
> > Prisoners obey the law because they are in prison, not because it is
> >virtuous to do so. Treating everyone like a prisoner means the death of
> >freedom, not 'real freedom'. Once nobody cares what is virtuous behavior
> >in themselves or others, what makes you think that they will care who is
> >watching them as they do anything they want to? At that point, the only
> >thing keeping the average person in a law abiding state is the threat of
> >instant police action.
>
> Prisoners obey the law for the same reason that everyone else does: they
> don't want to face the consequences of disobeying the law. For people with
> integrity those consequences consist primarily of one's own nagging
> conscience. For others the primary consequences include humiliation and
> loss of money, liberty or life. This will not change in a transparent
> society. The only change will be the swift and sure imposition of the
> consequences (which after all is a *good* thing, particularly for those of
> us who are law-abiding by nature).
An honorable person needs no external consequences. A society that
relies
only on external consequences has acknowledged that men are nothing but
savages and have no honor or rights.
>
> But you miss the point, transparency is not about treating people as
> prisoners. It's about treating people as family (which when you think about
> it is what they are). I know almost everything about my wife. Her
> finances, her hopes, her fears, her weaknesses, her strengths. I know
> exactly how she'll react if I kiss the backs of her knees. I know where she
> is almost all the time. Does that make her my prisoner? Especially when
> (1) she knows that I know these things about her and (2) she knows all these
> same things about me?
You have that relationship and you know those things about each other
because you both trust each other, not the other way around.
However, a true spousal relationship is based on the mutual trust that
comes from
respect for the other, and the desire for respect from the other, such
that you
could spend ten years apart from your spouse and they would trust that
you
would behave with respect toward them the entire time, even though they
have no idea what you are actually doing.
>
> You may not like it. But no matter. Transparency is the *only* solution
> for a society of superhumans. When any given person has the potential to
> set in motion things that could lead to the sterilization of the entire
> planet, you had better be able to trust (and keep a damn close eye on) your
> neighbors. After all, if you could trust me, I mean *really* trust me,
> would you really mind so much if I knew everything about you? That
> knowledge would make me a much better companion for you and would make me
> more fun for you to be around.
The thing is, I trust myself more than I trust you, this is a given.
However I do trust you
to an extent based on your record and based on the fact that you come
from a respectable
background. I know that *I* will not do those things, and because I
beleive in the principle
of equality, I find it safe to assume that you will behave the same way.
Because I want you trust me as much as you trust yourself,
I respect your right to your privacy. Surveillance indicates that trust
does
not exist, and cannot exist. The sort of people who beleive that Mutual
Assured
Surveillance is the only option are the sort of people who beleive the
whole
fascist "People are no damn good and need to be controlled" routine.
Total
sureveillance is the worst sort of tyranny, it does not matter one whit
if
its all mutual. Its the same thing with the socialist argument with
property:
I don't trust anybody but myself to responsibly handly property, so
therefore
nobody has a right to property.
back to the trust issue, we make a contract between us, where we both
claim we are
honorable, trust-worthy, and have integrity. Only those that break that
contract can be judged to have no honor or integrity, and therefore
must
have total surveillance. THis is the presumption of innocence. A total
surveillance society throws out the presumption of innocence, because by
definition, the idea that all must be surveilled indicates that none
can be trusted, that none have honor or integrity. The only difference
between a Mutual Surveillance Society, and a Big Brother Fascist Society
is that in the fascist society some (those in charge) are either
presumed
by themselves or everyone to have honor and/or integrity, and that
nobody
else has any, while the Mutual Surveillance Society declares that no one
has integrity or honor.
Trust is based upon respect, not intimate knowledge.
>
> Who knows...if I knew everything about you, and you knew everything about
> me, and we could both trust the other implicitly, we'd probably become the
> best of friends. As it stands I think you are a reactionary gun "nut" and
> you probably think I am a sanctimonious and narrow-minded fascist. Surely
> we can do better than that.
No, I would resent that you knew many private and embarrasing things
about me
that I would prefer that others did not know. You would know that this
was a point
of embarrassment and would use it with your primate hard wired instincts
for the
pecking order to humilitate and denigrate me in order to make yourself
look better.
Resentment leads to hate. You do not build trust on a foundation of
hate.
>
> "I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past"
> --Thomas Jefferson
"A society that would trade some freedom for security deserves neither
freedom nor security."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:06:13 MDT