My notes from Greg Bear’s TEDxSeattle talk “Too Much Information.”
We are entering into a time where it’s impossible to be private. There will be no secrets. We are always judged and warned not to expose too much information, but what happens when everyone’s skeletons are exposed?
There is a tradeoff between privacy and transparency. Yes, the government can watch us, but we can also watch them. We can archive their behavior. We will be able to record video from our cars, our glasses, our houses, everything. Libertarians would like us to have an all-access pass to everyone’s life, but what happens if you did something as a teenager that comes back to haunt you? When you can’t get away with anything. Maybe we will be more forgiving, but maybe we will get more conservative and start judging people again. How do we divide the bad people from the good people? Who do we hate?
How much of this information do we want? Does it take our time away from books and movies?
Can we move backwards from this massive information production? Will we hit a critical mass of information that causes the infosphere to implode? No, that’s not the way history works.
Do you want everything you said in high school to be permanent and public?
Sarah’s commentary
I agree that privacy is dead. Everyone will know everything about everyone else and we’ll all be a whole lot more tolerant and forgiving. Much bigotry and intolerance, I think, comes from redirecting attention away from our own shortcomings. I think that transparency is more important than privacy. Favoritism and classism rely inherently on privacy. I think want Bear is trying to say is that people have a right to not be judged, and I’m not sure that’s true. You have a right to do what you do, to hold your beliefs and make your statements, but likewise everyone else has a right to make commentary on that.
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http://emahlee.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/me-we-and-junto/ Me, We and Junto « Corazon y Mente
