Reddit reviews The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom?

Camera's aren't the problem. Those are probably inevitable. The real issue will be who can access the footage. If you haven't read David Brin's The Transparent Society I would recommend giving it a look.

You cannot link to David Brin talking about privacy without linking to his book on the subject.

The Transparent Society - wiki

>The Transparent Society (1998) is a non-fiction book by the science-fiction author David Brin in which he forecasts social transparency and some degree of erosion of privacy, as it is overtaken by low-cost surveillance, communication and database technology, and proposes new institutions and practices that he believes would provide benefits that would more than compensate for lost privacy. The work first appeared as a magazine article by Brin in Wired in late 1996.

amazon link

Which book?

edit Found The Transparent Society

I'd be more worried about the manipulation of social media, nowadays. Especially astroturfing stuff that isn't distinguishable from the actions of regular anonymous political fanatics. Good luck policing that without just flat out making all exchanges of money between anyone public (actually do consider making all transactions public though, I'm fairly sure that society wouldn't be a bad place to live)

Also: Sufficiently advanced civic analysis is indistinguishable from a service that people would pay money for.

You have to just pay attention to where people are getting their information and try to make that thing democratic imo.

I just leave this here.

Personally, I think that we will realize how little we care what other people are doing.

David Brin(yes, the science fiction author) talked about this years ago in his book : "The Transparent Society"


It was a incredibly good book, and i wish it had gotten more press and reception.


http://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Society-Technology-Between-Privacy/dp/0738201448/ref=pd_bbs_sr_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220249895&sr=8-10

Hate to break it to you, but David Brin came up with the same idea like 20 years ago.

https://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Society-Technology-Between-Privacy/dp/0738201448

> No. Privacy is more important than ever, precisely because the Internet is a ravenous copying and archiving machine. A photo, once leaked, can never be destroyed. It is copied billions of times and stored in millions of repositories around the world with no hope of auditing or tracking.

My only disagreement with you is here.

I dont think its more important than ever across the board. I would say it is much more important in a few areas (stuff that is encrypted like Bitcoin keys, Smart Phones ect) but less important in most things. People are sharing intimate details about their lives current day that most people would never dream of 100 years ago via social media like FB and Twitter.

The Transparent Society is a great book that goes into great detail about how its in our nature to voluntarily sacrifice privacy in return for the massive benefits of doing so.... and it was written 15 years ago. The dude really knew what he was talking about.

> The basic problem is she is interfering with their narcotics enforcement operations.

Living in a society pretty much means that members will interfere with each other. Every action causes interference with others. The role of ethics and laws are conflict resolution.

> They work undercover, and she posts their photos, gives out their names, gives addresses, and tips people off as to what their doing.

Cops and politicians share information about non-cops and non-politicians and tip each other off as to what we are doing. Do we want to live in a caste society? Why should they get all the fun?

> This impacts their ability to do their jobs.

So does smoking weed inside your house rather than directly in front of a cop.

> It's also illegal.

I suspect it is, but that brings us into a dangerous area where truth becomes illegal. The best thing that could be done to eliminate corruption is to bring it out into the light of day. Read David Brin's The Transparent Society for more information on the elimination of privacy for both sides in general.

> Free speech means she can criticize them, write about their operations, discuss the legality of anti-narco enforcement in general, etc. However, she crossed the line when she repeated interfered in an attempt to thwart what they are doing. She's running a counter-intelligence operation against them. There are laws preventing this in every state.

Your rights are whatever enough other people agree they are. I believe in the societal contract, but I also believe that either party can breach it. Through either a disinterested populace, active roadblocks to reform, or both, the law has largely been removed from the hands of the people expected to obey it. One solution is to just decide to be in a different society. You can do this without even moving. However, you have to expect that you'll be judged by the ethics of the society that you're leaving unless you get enough people to come along with you that you can physically prevent that from happening.

> You also have to ask yourself why someone would want to do this. I mean, I understand the anti-cop thing here on Reddit, but I just don't buy justifying this particular behavior, no matter how spirited / biased you are about the issue.

Every good cop that I've ever met has been heavily involved in community work. They believed in walking the streets and interacting with people not sitting inside a cruiser or being on a power trip. They also all quit after a while. Coincidence? If cops want to live the Bad Boyz fantasy life then they (and their families) can take the risk. If the same number of SWAT cops and police dogs got killed as no-knock warrant people and their pets, some changes would occur.