For those that value privacy over safety I have to ask, what have you got to hide? What I have to hide is…
The things you would use against me if you knew me so well you could predict my reactions to your actions. To measure is to improve, that is a true statement, but it has a devious implication in that to measure is to know. Each one of us has many things we wish to keep to ourselves that our behaviour would not reveal to the casual observer, but with complex AI and mass surveillance there is no longer a place to hide from constant analysis.
The information about how I come to believe things, the data about how I am likely to think in any scenario. Actions are based on belief, each person acts as their morals dictate they should, and morals are a structural component of a person. You cannot believe strongly in one thing and then act in opposition to that belief unless you are under the greater influence of another, greater force, like a fear or incentive. I am a deeply moral person, not religious in any fashion, but with a strongly held faith in the objections and postulates of Kant and Mill. I happen to also be a huge fan of the ethical treatment of animals, and this empathy for the living being could be seen as a weakness to some that would wish to exploit me. I’ll explain that further, whatever you care about is the ammunition of the manipulator, we cannot be hurt or manipulated as a result of something we are indifferent about. Each one of us has vulnerabilities, each one of us can be coerced and manipulated, if someone, or something, just knew how. The how is the method, the tool is the information, the worry is the motivation.
Each one of us has at least one historical aspect to our life that we are not proud of. Leverage is the term for when someone uses the power of suggesting that a reveal of your shame or guilt could potentially be used to make you adhere to their will instead of your own. I am not proud of actions I performed as a young and foolish man that I won’t go into here, but the details of them only exist in the minds of people who were also there at the time, not on some camera footage stored on the internet. The incidents I am talking about happened before the invention of the ring doorbell and coincide with the early internet before people had it in their pockets. To relay these incidents would be embarrassing to me, this is likely why anyone that was there would likely not do so, mainly because I am a grown man now and not the same person I was. It is this human intuition that makes the difference. For those that are looking to harm you they just need access to the materials they can use, in the modern AI, social media. and surveillance world this is an easier task that it used to be.
One of the great joys of life is to meet new people and form new relationships, in this we get to somewhat re-invent ourselves anew and offer only what we wish. You do not have this afforded to you when you apply for a job or try to form other sorts of relationships with agencies if they trawl your social media or read your blog. I felt recently, while looking for an alternative employment, that my social content, specifically this blog and my Facebook posts, may have been the reason why I so often get no responses, yet I’m likely wrong and it’s my age that affects the decisions I face. We are differing people in differing circumstances, you are a different person in work than you are at home, you’re kids see a different person than your spouse does, or your mum. Now I am all for authenticity yeah, but shouldn’t a little bit of variation be allowed?
Bottom line, you, the government and the marketplace, want desperately for me to let you know me while I do not know anything about you, and you think it’s okay to bake your need into my purchases and my electronic devices, and my habits and my movements? And for that access to who I am, what I will grant you, you will promise me some sort of safety I didn’t know I needed now, and know I lived without before you gained these insights? Safety from what exactly, safety from who, from you?
Sounds a lot like a protection racket to me….
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