To me, it is a boiling frog situation where each incremental loss of privacy is no big deal and nobody is actually looking at my data in particular so I don't care at all about that. And I don't care about my own privacy beyond any average person and I don't use any tools to hide my identity or whatever.
The worry is not a personal one, or even a systemic one, but a concern over the general direction of data availability and societal fragility.
Take, for example, the drone scare in NJ right now. The problem isn't what the drones are doing but the potential they have to do any number of harmful or invasive things. Right now I can go to Costco and buy a drone with an HD camera and hover it outside your bedroom window. Or have it sprinkle anthrax on your head when you walk outside your apartment.
The problem is that technological advancement far outpaces our ability to reason or control its usage effectively. Regulation lags misuse and eventually something (drones, nanobots, whatever) is going to lead to a massive and irreversible calamity before we change our starry-eyed rush to embrace the "new".
Sometimes I think the Amish have the right approach, though a little extreme. They aren't 100% anti-technology but meet every year to vote on if something new should be adopted, only after considering all negatives and secondary effects.
I am a realist, though, so I just live my life and brace for the eventual impact.
> The problem is that technological advancement far outpaces our ability to reason or control its usage effectively. Regulation lags misuse and eventually something (drones, nanobots, whatever) is going to lead to a massive and irreversible calamity before we change our starry-eyed rush to embrace the "new".
To paraphrase Lord Of The Rings, those who have no drones can still die by them. As long as drones are being made in China or Iran or anywhere in the world, a terrorist/non-state actor/motivated assassin/special ops unit can get them and use them against you. Banning them in the US may slow this down, slightly, but it won't prevent it.
I hear this argument often times when relating to gun laws in the US as a defense for the status quo, and yet the US continues to have the second highest gun deaths per capita. I can’t say that this argument is fallacious because of that parallel, but it does end up being a weaker argument in my eyes because of it.
There has to be another option besides letting the arms race continue unchecked. That’s the only option that, in my opinion, ensures that we all lose.
The worry is not a personal one, or even a systemic one, but a concern over the general direction of data availability and societal fragility.
Take, for example, the drone scare in NJ right now. The problem isn't what the drones are doing but the potential they have to do any number of harmful or invasive things. Right now I can go to Costco and buy a drone with an HD camera and hover it outside your bedroom window. Or have it sprinkle anthrax on your head when you walk outside your apartment.
The problem is that technological advancement far outpaces our ability to reason or control its usage effectively. Regulation lags misuse and eventually something (drones, nanobots, whatever) is going to lead to a massive and irreversible calamity before we change our starry-eyed rush to embrace the "new".
Sometimes I think the Amish have the right approach, though a little extreme. They aren't 100% anti-technology but meet every year to vote on if something new should be adopted, only after considering all negatives and secondary effects.
I am a realist, though, so I just live my life and brace for the eventual impact.