Slashdot Mirror
Scott Adams Says Plenty Would Choose Life In Noprivacyville
LoLobey writes "On the other end of the spectrum from Richard Stallman, Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) speculates upon the advantages of living in a town with no privacy whatsoever. Everyone gets chipped and tracked online. 'Although you would never live in a city without privacy, I think that if one could save 30% on basic living expenses, and live in a relatively crime-free area, plenty of volunteers would come forward.'"
Sorry, Scott. Dreams of Utopia are just dreams.
Excluding all the other numerous technical issues here, we’d probably need some kind of artificial intelligence, or something close to it first before something like this could even potentially work.
A lot of these ideas involve making intelligent decisions about people based on large amounts of data. The kind of decisions and data sources that would be hard to algorithm-ize.
The current reality is that on an individual level, no one is going to spend 5 days reading reports about you so they can sell you a better toothbrush. Marketers work in the aggregate using a set of data points. Simply put, we’re for the most part not worth the individual trouble. Unless you can train a machine to do it, I don't see it happening at this level.
I think Scott is over estimating the discount needed to get a large group of volunteers to move to Fishbowlville.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I don't think this is all that outlandish. It's about equality, and in some senses, openness. If everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was tracked, chipped, monitored, followed, & watched AND the information was 100% transparent and available to EVERYONE, then well... sure, it'd be a great place to live. In all your 1984 dystopian scenarios, there's an elite segment that isn't subject to the same rules as the masses---arguably, there exists an elite segment in today's society that isn't subject to the same rules as the masses---and it's also a "who watches the watchers" issue. IMHO, alot of the issues that currently exist stem from a lack of (perceived and real) fairness in multiple aspects of life. Even the playing field and make the surveillance universal & transparent, allow everyone to freely monitor everyone else, and I think it would result in a shockingly fair society.
Of course, in theory. I don't know if it could be implemented in practice, and therein lies the rub.
If there were full transparency everywhere -- in government, in corporations, of rich aristocrats, etc -- that might work.
But the reality is that the powerful people and organizations protect their own privacy, and use their knowledge advantage that as leverage against those who choose transparency for themselves.
who said "in an information age, if you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything at all"
The obvious flaw in such a plan is: who watches the watchers? History has proven time and again that when people are given the power of controlling such information, they will use it to their own gain, and my detriment, eventually. For instance: stalkers, political candidate harassment, election tampering, home invasion/robber informants, etc.
It's not that I think I should hide my activities, it's that I do not believe there is anyone uncorruptible, who could be trusted with the information.
Yeah, people would go for the 30% discount, because people refuse to learn the lessons of history, and generally, are stupid sheeple.
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Privacy is basically a right of self-defense against prejudice. Asymmetric (privacy voilators are often virtuous in the area violated), but privacy has more characteristics than just the information being available.
Who matters: Abuses also happen when there are a priviliged set of monitors (police) and monitoring is not publicly accessible (webcams). Monitors benefit directly but others do not.
Worse is when data is retained unreasonably long and someone goes on a retrospective witchhunt. Cyber archive stalking.
Just because one car insurance company is offering a 30% discount to customers who agree to GPS tracking to prove they don't drive in rush hour traffic (and how many fit that profile?), it doesn't follow that one can save 30% on all "basic living expenses" by totally giving up privacy. As to the major living expenses: rent/mortgage, taxes, food ... no one has made a plausible claim those expenses can be reduced at all.
This is a thought experiment only, and not a well-considered one at that. If we assume that marketers are economically rational beings, the only way they would let you "save" money by giving up your privacy is if they can make more money from it than you "save." Maybe in a few cases such as car insurance that can be done by increasing efficiency, but more likely it will be done by pushing your buttons to get you to buy overpriced crap you don't need.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
A huge portion of the troubles we face in society today come from the conflict between our natural and social/cultural issues surrounding sex and sexual drives.
Nature says "do it whenever and however you want and boobs aren't for sex, they are for feeding babies." Society and culture has taken a completely opposing slant that says "sex is bad for children to know about and 'harms them', boobs are not to be seen (unless they are on a male), masturbation is disgusting and shouldn't be spoken of and sharing sex should be controlled, limited and often forbidden."
I know it's awfully Freudian of me to assert that sex is the central point of everything about humanity, but since we are unable to escape our animal identity (as much as we seek to deny and disguise it) we might as well accept it.
And we are constantly at odds with ourselves idealistically and otherwise. Marketers know that "sex sells" and so they sell it in every way possible except "overtly and directly" (because that would be illegal!). Our ideals of beauty, femininity and masculinity, and our very potential as human beings are ultimately based on our perception of what makes the best sexual partner.
But what does this have to do with "privacy"? I think it should be obvious. Aside from money and resource matters (which could also be slanted to be driven by sex) privacy is almost all about sex... sex and politics... politics which have to do with greed and power... which has a lot to do with sex. Perhaps I am pushing things a little far in my connection between our sexual conflict between nature and society, but the fact remains that we as individuals for all manner of reasons are required to have privacy where our thoughts, ideas, ideals and desires which are sexual in nature.
The other aspects of privacy/secrecy are all about keeping others from knowing what you have "so they can't take it from you."
All of this points to the fact that people, in general, simply don't understand or care to understand the real problems facing humanity and where they come from. In this case, they come from religion and other artificial social constructs that fly in opposition to man's own nature. (I am not saying that opposing man's own nature is a bad thing entirely -- there is a place for asserting limitations or else we would all kill one another and there would be no progress at all.) I think that perhaps simply knowing and understanding the realities of what we are doing to ourselves would actually be enough. Then we wouldn't have situations were young teenagers become child pornographers and marked for life as a sexual criminal for exploring their own [natural] sexual interests.
Privacy (and secrecy) is all about this. People on the surface might think they are willing to give up all privacy "for a better life" but they actually don't understand the full depth of what they would be giving up and what they are taking for granted.
I imagine there would emerge some element of a class divide. Sure, you commoners get no privacy, yes. But the politicians? Well, they would argue, they need their lives to be kept secret as a matter of national security. Managers of companies of sufficient influence would find some way to maintain secrecy for the sake protecting their commercially sensitive information. And everything - absolutly everything - relating to children would end up made secret to protect them from the pedophile bogeymen. It would end up, I imagine, in a situation where everyone has no privacy in princible - but those who have some level of money or influence would have no problem getting themselves excluded. Or, equally bad, where no person has any privacy - but the only organisations able to access the monitoring data would be government and corporations, who would be quite happy to make sure it stays that way.
It's an interesting thought experiment, but it's not just a city without privacy, it's a scifi city without privacy. He explicitly says that he imagines a place where all he describes is technically possible; and much of it isn't and won't be in the forseeable future. And as far as science fiction goes, it's not that exciting a text.
He's also trying very hard -- comically so -- to imagine every consequence as being positive: "Advertisements would transform from a pervasive nuisance into something more like useful information." Sure, Scott. And while total surveillance would result in an increase in solved criminal cases which would probably reduce some kinds of crime, others would still exist: many instances of violent crime are committed in the heat of the moment, others are the result of negligence. Neither would be affected by total surveillance, although I'm sure you could come up with some scifi handwaving argument, like saying that the tendency to assault somebody can be determined from genetic traits and previous surveillance like observed shouting or threatening behaviour. And so on...
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Before everybody get's their panties in a bunch, the key line from TFA is this:
So don't take it too seriously. Scott Adams isn't proposing this as a good idea, attacking your privacy or making excuses for attacking your privacy. He set up a premise and explored what he thinks the consequences might be. You can disagree with his conclusions, but try and keep some perspective.
With that sort of logic fail, we can safely conclude that Scott Adams has been killed and replaced by a PHB cloned to look like him.
i don't put clothes on when i'm between the bedroom and the bathroom.
It is a false equivalence. There is no privacy in prisons, yet crime is rampant.
If total transparency is in play all crime stops dead in its tracks.
Wishful thinking. People will still do stupid things even if they know they're going to get caught.
If that guy sits in your back seat with a pistol and a sign saying "I'll murder anybody who damages this car." I think you've made a sound investment.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
i don't put clothes on when i'm between the bedroom and the bathroom.
we are painfully, painfully, aware.