RE: IoT: Your thought and views
July 3, 2018 at 7:05 pm
(This post was last modified: July 3, 2018 at 7:05 pm by bennyboy.)
Privacy from malicious people is important. If they have information that could allow them to manipulate you, then you will be manipulated.
Part of this is the privacy asymmetry. Take for example nude images. 20 years ago, leaked nude images of a person, famous or not, would have garnered a tremendous amount of shame and embarrassment. My hunch now it that given the huge preponderance of pornography, so many leaked photos and so on, that body privacy is gradually becoming less important. If pictures of me ever hit the internet, I'd expect a pretty minimal impact, indeed.
Truth be told, Google/God will have layers and levels of information so sublime that it seems very likely to change historical outcomes. I get that, and it's non-trivial.
However, the possible benefits of information connectivity are also non-trivial. If GoogleGod knows what everybody eats at every meal, then there is a built-in data pool for analysis of diet, health consequences, etc. Now, people may not WANT GoogleGod to know that they eat waffles and babies every morning-- it's private, after all. But collectively, nobody gives a shit what everyone else is eating. That's that special snowflake effect at work.
Tracking locations of people would also make it much easier to track epidemic disease spread. This might involve a loss of freedoms as well-- regional quarantines, for example.
Technology seems to have the effect of magnifying and accelerating everything. But overall, I think that given a healthy system of governance, more information connectivity will represent a benefit more than a detriment.
Part of this is the privacy asymmetry. Take for example nude images. 20 years ago, leaked nude images of a person, famous or not, would have garnered a tremendous amount of shame and embarrassment. My hunch now it that given the huge preponderance of pornography, so many leaked photos and so on, that body privacy is gradually becoming less important. If pictures of me ever hit the internet, I'd expect a pretty minimal impact, indeed.
Truth be told, Google/God will have layers and levels of information so sublime that it seems very likely to change historical outcomes. I get that, and it's non-trivial.
However, the possible benefits of information connectivity are also non-trivial. If GoogleGod knows what everybody eats at every meal, then there is a built-in data pool for analysis of diet, health consequences, etc. Now, people may not WANT GoogleGod to know that they eat waffles and babies every morning-- it's private, after all. But collectively, nobody gives a shit what everyone else is eating. That's that special snowflake effect at work.
Tracking locations of people would also make it much easier to track epidemic disease spread. This might involve a loss of freedoms as well-- regional quarantines, for example.
Technology seems to have the effect of magnifying and accelerating everything. But overall, I think that given a healthy system of governance, more information connectivity will represent a benefit more than a detriment.
