Thanks to a researching middle and high school best friend, I entered the world of paranoia at a young age. I, however, just saw myself as becoming aware and concerned and sometimes a bit helpless and wondered why many others weren't as concerned. I remember always saying, "How could they do that? Is it right?" While it's easy to just ignore the issues that would make me paranoid, I realize that it's so important to at least put thought into such issues because of the strong likelihood that certain plans and theories and technologies are closer to being a reality than we realize. Watching "The Entire History of You" caused me to think more about some of the implications associated with advanced technology like The Grain. In many ways, I think that such technology is so efficient. The "Total Redo" response article argues about how a single piece of technology ruined a marriage, but was it the technology? I'd like to suggest that the technology mainly extends and exalts who we are. It's not the technology that necessarily ruined the marriage. It was the resource that extended Liam's (the husband) own persistent search for truth. Also, the Grain, for example, is not what would necessarily make me paranoid, although I'm no cheerleader for implants. It's the exploitation of information that makes me paranoid. In this film, we see that perfect memory implants cause everyone to end up being a surveillance camera on those around them. In everyday life, we may become privy to certain information about others if we happened to be informed or happened to be around at the time of an event. Other than that, if certain knowledge isn't recorded, we must rely on our natural memory to aid in our decision making in moving forward in everyday life. Is a perfect memory implant that keeps an uninvited track record of others ethical? Is it ethical to have ones personal information collected at random and in secret? The "If You're Not Paranoid, You're Crazy" article vividly depicts the discomfort a data center stirs up. It's surveillance beyond limits. If one entity has or will one day have full uninvited access to the majority of my personal information, that's when I think things have gone too far. Why does one entity need to know so much about me? Is it ethical for an entity to collect and use my personal information for reasons beyond my knowledge? Since more information about a person can eventually be used to influence a person's action, can we assume that surveillance and exploitation of personal information is for control purposes? "Once you know how very little you know about those who wish to know everything about you, daily experience starts to lose its innocence and little things begin to feel like the tentacles of big things." Not only does extreme surveillance frustrate those who may be surveilled, but it also creates an overall robotic, unauthentic, and seemingly controlled behavior for all who are aware of this surveillance and information collection. "There are so many ghosts in our machines—their locations so hidden, their methods so ingenious, their motives so inscrutable—that not to feel haunted is not to be awake. That’s why paranoia, even in its extreme forms, no longer seems to me so much a disorder as mode of cognition with an impressive track record of prescience." I'm not sure that I'd subscribe to the grain,but I know that technology is not the "bad guy". However, if technology is being used for the purposes of control (in the supposed land of the free), is such use of non-private use of technology ethical?
Friday, August 26, 2016
Technology is cool, super surveillance is not!
How Ethical Is Surveillance & Data Collection?
Thanks to a researching middle and high school best friend, I entered the world of paranoia at a young age. I, however, just saw myself as becoming aware and concerned and sometimes a bit helpless and wondered why many others weren't as concerned. I remember always saying, "How could they do that? Is it right?" While it's easy to just ignore the issues that would make me paranoid, I realize that it's so important to at least put thought into such issues because of the strong likelihood that certain plans and theories and technologies are closer to being a reality than we realize. Watching "The Entire History of You" caused me to think more about some of the implications associated with advanced technology like The Grain. In many ways, I think that such technology is so efficient. The "Total Redo" response article argues about how a single piece of technology ruined a marriage, but was it the technology? I'd like to suggest that the technology mainly extends and exalts who we are. It's not the technology that necessarily ruined the marriage. It was the resource that extended Liam's (the husband) own persistent search for truth. Also, the Grain, for example, is not what would necessarily make me paranoid, although I'm no cheerleader for implants. It's the exploitation of information that makes me paranoid. In this film, we see that perfect memory implants cause everyone to end up being a surveillance camera on those around them. In everyday life, we may become privy to certain information about others if we happened to be informed or happened to be around at the time of an event. Other than that, if certain knowledge isn't recorded, we must rely on our natural memory to aid in our decision making in moving forward in everyday life. Is a perfect memory implant that keeps an uninvited track record of others ethical? Is it ethical to have ones personal information collected at random and in secret? The "If You're Not Paranoid, You're Crazy" article vividly depicts the discomfort a data center stirs up. It's surveillance beyond limits. If one entity has or will one day have full uninvited access to the majority of my personal information, that's when I think things have gone too far. Why does one entity need to know so much about me? Is it ethical for an entity to collect and use my personal information for reasons beyond my knowledge? Since more information about a person can eventually be used to influence a person's action, can we assume that surveillance and exploitation of personal information is for control purposes? "Once you know how very little you know about those who wish to know everything about you, daily experience starts to lose its innocence and little things begin to feel like the tentacles of big things." Not only does extreme surveillance frustrate those who may be surveilled, but it also creates an overall robotic, unauthentic, and seemingly controlled behavior for all who are aware of this surveillance and information collection. "There are so many ghosts in our machines—their locations so hidden, their methods so ingenious, their motives so inscrutable—that not to feel haunted is not to be awake. That’s why paranoia, even in its extreme forms, no longer seems to me so much a disorder as mode of cognition with an impressive track record of prescience." I'm not sure that I'd subscribe to the grain,but I know that technology is not the "bad guy". However, if technology is being used for the purposes of control (in the supposed land of the free), is such use of non-private use of technology ethical?
Thanks to a researching middle and high school best friend, I entered the world of paranoia at a young age. I, however, just saw myself as becoming aware and concerned and sometimes a bit helpless and wondered why many others weren't as concerned. I remember always saying, "How could they do that? Is it right?" While it's easy to just ignore the issues that would make me paranoid, I realize that it's so important to at least put thought into such issues because of the strong likelihood that certain plans and theories and technologies are closer to being a reality than we realize. Watching "The Entire History of You" caused me to think more about some of the implications associated with advanced technology like The Grain. In many ways, I think that such technology is so efficient. The "Total Redo" response article argues about how a single piece of technology ruined a marriage, but was it the technology? I'd like to suggest that the technology mainly extends and exalts who we are. It's not the technology that necessarily ruined the marriage. It was the resource that extended Liam's (the husband) own persistent search for truth. Also, the Grain, for example, is not what would necessarily make me paranoid, although I'm no cheerleader for implants. It's the exploitation of information that makes me paranoid. In this film, we see that perfect memory implants cause everyone to end up being a surveillance camera on those around them. In everyday life, we may become privy to certain information about others if we happened to be informed or happened to be around at the time of an event. Other than that, if certain knowledge isn't recorded, we must rely on our natural memory to aid in our decision making in moving forward in everyday life. Is a perfect memory implant that keeps an uninvited track record of others ethical? Is it ethical to have ones personal information collected at random and in secret? The "If You're Not Paranoid, You're Crazy" article vividly depicts the discomfort a data center stirs up. It's surveillance beyond limits. If one entity has or will one day have full uninvited access to the majority of my personal information, that's when I think things have gone too far. Why does one entity need to know so much about me? Is it ethical for an entity to collect and use my personal information for reasons beyond my knowledge? Since more information about a person can eventually be used to influence a person's action, can we assume that surveillance and exploitation of personal information is for control purposes? "Once you know how very little you know about those who wish to know everything about you, daily experience starts to lose its innocence and little things begin to feel like the tentacles of big things." Not only does extreme surveillance frustrate those who may be surveilled, but it also creates an overall robotic, unauthentic, and seemingly controlled behavior for all who are aware of this surveillance and information collection. "There are so many ghosts in our machines—their locations so hidden, their methods so ingenious, their motives so inscrutable—that not to feel haunted is not to be awake. That’s why paranoia, even in its extreme forms, no longer seems to me so much a disorder as mode of cognition with an impressive track record of prescience." I'm not sure that I'd subscribe to the grain,but I know that technology is not the "bad guy". However, if technology is being used for the purposes of control (in the supposed land of the free), is such use of non-private use of technology ethical?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I love that you recognize that technology is not the enemy (at least not yet), but instead it is the way in which technology is used that can be the enemy. Technology has a tendency to consume us, and that can make an enemy out of it too. Also, I was one of those people that was oblivious of the need to be paranoid as I was younger and then the more and more I learn the more paranoid I get. And I wonder about the ethics of technology as well. Like how far is too far? And does anyone have the answer to that.
ReplyDelete