On 09/14/2010 11:23 PM, Arshad Noor wrote:
Marsh Ray wrote:
There are a couple of influential books you might consider reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
However, I believe it is naive to bring up the "Orwellian
Society" as a "bugaboo" because of a concept that enables the
tracking of every legitimate, non-anonymous transaction through
strong authentication/digital-signatures. You are already
living in an Orwellian society whether you like it or not:
http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying. Any assumption on your
part that you have any modicum of privacy on the internet, is
fallacious.
The problem isn't about fake identities; it is about
improving archaic business processes through the use of
technology - and doing it securely, and across a sector,
in one fell swoop.
When an entire system is breaking down, there are many
parts that need fixing; however, to stanch the problem, one
has to begin at the point where you can slow down the rate
of current compromises before you fix the problems inside.
Notwithstanding the hyperbole (you do know that DNA can be
profiled based on spit), common sense is *always* necessary
at all times. However, events of the last decade have shown
that there is very little of it exercised everywhere.
The above will go without reply.
The world's population is approaching 7 billion people, with
projections of 10-billion by 2050. The richest country in
the world (the USA) with a mere 300M people has a trillion-
dollar deficit, cannot fix roads, schools and is watching the
resurgence of polio, TB and lice (aside from anti-biotic
resistant bacteria). Like it or not, solving problems for
the next century is going to require some very different kind
of thinking.
All of this was present in the first half of the 20th century across the
Western world and even here in the US, only to a far greater degree than
we have now. People felt empowered by impressive new technologies to
address their problems and all sorts of comprehensive top-down
"solutions" were tried, from the Utopian to the nightmarish.
The literature referenced above dates from that period.
This "kind of thinking" that has been a defining characteristic of the
West for the second half of the last century was formed from the lessons
of the first. Most people feel it was a big improvement worth keeping.
- Marsh
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