Re: dumbocracy

Hagbard Celine (hagbard@ix.netcom.com)
Tue, 24 Jun 1997 18:37:01 -0400


Eric Watt Forste wrote:
>
> Hagbard Celine wrote:
> > Privacy, Anton, is a thing of the past.
>
> A little while later, Mark Grant posted:
> > Ah, "experience escrow" is here at last... (such systems will, of
> > course, produce access for the "legitimate needs of law enforecement").
>
> I hope Mark's comments will make it little clearer to Mr. Celine
> why his remark to Anton aroused such vitriol from some of the
> other list members.

Yes they do.

I happen to think that in a short time, what we know of as "privacy"
will be a thing of the past. Some others are not convinced of that.

The technologies that we are pushing on this list are just as easily
used against us as they are by us and for us. Since these technologies
*will* someday exist, I feel also that the last remnants of what we call
privacy will dissipate into a vestigial anachronism. I have resigned
myself to this, and that attitude has infiltrated my post.

If you don't believe it will happen, then take issue with me. If you
don't like my attitude of resignation, tell me why. But spare me the
vitriol. I'm on this list to learn. If you know it all, then teach me.

> Mr. Celine's namesake, a fictional character in a famous novel,
> once observed "Without private property, there can be no private
> life." Mr. Celine might also want to keep in mind that without
> privacy, there can be no private property.

So is this my doing? I observe that privacy will be eventually and
inevitably be merely an anachronism, and yet, somehow I am also
advocating the death of private life? Words are being put into my mouth
as far as I can figure.

> Erik Moeller, for instance, might be happy to do away with all
> private life, once and for all, and condemn all human beings to
> permanently live the life of a politician, but I suspect many here
> would struggle to escape from such a fate. I know I would.

Okay.

> Mr. Celine, you've read your Wilson, but have you read your
> Orwell?

I am really unsure of what you are assuming about me. If thought Big
Brother was inevitable, would this also mean I wanted it to happen?

"Just because a man likes the sea doesn't mean he wants to sit next to a
ton of dead mackerel."

-- Hagbard Celine