Rick Monteverde wrote:
Health care, terrorism, transportation, taxes & user fees tech is taking us down the road to pervasive monitoring whether we like it or not. Libertarian/conservative though I am, yet I think trading some privacy in return for freedom, while intrinsically undesirable, is actually not too bad a trade these days where the benefits are significant.
I do not see why living a goldfish bowl is considered less free. It is less anonymous. For most of American history, most people lived in small towns where everyone knew all about you. It was highly invasive by modern standards. Europeans visiting American called us a nation of busybodies. Yet people felt themselves to be free.
Personal reputation was also important, and it was predicated on widespread knowledge of who you were, how much money you had, how well you honored agreements and so on, which was known to other businessmen in the community in as much detail as you find on Google today. Around 1985, I went to New York City to get some goods worth about $50,000. The supplier, an old-school guy who had been in business for decades, said, "Okay, I'll ship it today." I said "don't you want to wait for the check to clear?" He said "nah, I knew your grandfather Sundel and your Uncle Danny, so I trust you completely." My grandfather had died 20 years earlier.
- Jed
