I consider privacy to be intangible property, and very valuable.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <hibbert@netcom.com>
> To: <extropians@extropy.org>; "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>
> Cc: <hibbert@netcom.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 11:24 AM
> Subject: privacy/openness
>
>
> >
> > Lee quoted Spike:
> > > I say to hell with privacy (my own, not other people's).
> > > Dont flinch, dont blush, live open, upload, share the files
> > > with anyone who cares to read them. spike
> >
> > And responded:
> > >I'll add that it is something that we easily could get
> > >used to, and I think that we'll be better off for it
> > >too.
> >
> > I don't disagree with this point of view, but it's a long-term view as
far
> > as I can tell. As I've said repeatedly in discussions on this topic,
it's
> > the short term that concerns me in this discussion. We can't get to our
> > grand and glorious future except by surviving the short and medium term.
> > Right now, many people are getting burned because society's institutions
> > assume some things are secret, and that whoever knows the secret is the
> > person who should have access to an account. Since privacy is being
> > eroded, the wrong people have access to too many things, and as a
result,
> > assets are being stolen, credit ratings are being sullied, and all
manner
> > of other bad things are happening.
> >
> > When we get to a society in which people understand how much care has to
> be
> > taken to identify the rightful owner of something, or to correctly
> identify
> > someone in order to store information about a transaction, and they
> > understand how much reliance it is reasonable to place in those records,
> > we'll do fine.
> >
> > The two things I'm most concerned about are (1) the backlash from people
> > who are afraid of progress or uncomfortable with transparency (because
> > their world view is based in recent past ability to protect privacy),
and
> > (2) the kinds of regulation those people will impose in order to keep
the
> > privacy situation from getting worse (in their view). It could get
> > seriously draconian in the medium term, and could make it very hard to
> work
> > on some of the kinds of things we favor.
> >
> > Too much celebration of transparency, especially in terms of
inevitibility
> > and "you'd better get used to it, 'cause you won't be able to stop it"
> will
> > fan the flames and make the backlash worse. I've been trying to find
ways
> > to get the people I talk to to consider the possibility that change
might
> > happen and think about whether that future would be acceptable. So far,
I
> > have had inconsistent successes. Other than people who already "get it"
> on
> > most subjects, throwing transparency in people's faces hasn't worked for
> me.
> >
> > Chris
> > ---
> > Chris Hibbert protecting privacy in the computer age is
> > hibbert@netcom.com like trying to change a tire on a moving
> car.
> > http://discuss.foresight.org/~hibbert/home.html --Colin
> Bennett
> > Yahoo Instant Message: ag_cth
> >
> >
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:43 MDT