At 12:37 PM 11/07/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>I consider privacy to be intangible property, and very valuable.
When I was a kid my best friend kept a number of snakes and lizards as
pets. Now, lizards and snakes are not real smart, but I was quite surprised
when I learned that he needed to give them places to hide or they would die.
Even lowly lizards need privacy.
It would be really cool to be able to live in an open world... but I just
don't see how this can be possible... in the near future anyway.
Cheers,
- Miriam
> > ----- 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
> > >
> > >
> >
---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=------
Q. What is the similarity between an elephant and a grape?
A. They are both purple... except for the elephant.
---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=---------=------
http://werple.net.au/~miriam
http://members.optushome.com.au/miriame
Virtual Reality Association http://www.vr.org.au
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:44 MDT