Photography

[tobestool]

Something that has been bubbling round in my mind for a while now has been brought to my attention by sightings of the evil privacy-invading car, namely the slightly uneasy feeling I get having my photograph taken. The impact of being photographed has changed dramaticly in recent times, five years ago, digital cameras were relatively rare, all that

Comments

[tobestool]

That was a very interesting read, thank you. I think it rings rather true at this time when for the first time, such weapons are generally rather more available, if not to the man in the street, but to the well-organsied and dedicated group. As such we're being led to greater and greater levels of fear, by an organisation which, ironically, I fear much more than most of the groups concerned.

I suppose that it can be argued that the surveylance state is the return swing of the power that the internet removed from states. I think, however, that the individual having access to such a vast array of knowledge and tools such as strong encryption is in a stronger position than before. I suspect, however, that the state is also in a stronger position against the unthinking, Facebook posting masses.

Yes, I think that spreading thoughtfullness and caution is probably the only way we have to fight this sort of thing. However I also fear that that is a battle already lost with the rescources available to convince people this is for their saftey / convenience.

I do feel, though that this is in a large part due to the fact that technology has advanced at a rate far faster than society can decide what is acceptable.

[hackenpaste]

I had this argument recently with someone, that technology (or at least all tech we've seen so far) is pretty much just fulfilling the role of any other tool and can only really serve to magnify positive or negative actions of the people who employ the technology; that the problems we face are the same old problems we have always faced, i.e. that of people, irrespective of whether they employ a club, a gun or an ICBM. Of course this assumes that technology will not converge on something truly different that breaks this pattern.. in the way that the current climate model can be considered a local stable minima on a graph of environmental variables and some kind of activity (such as global warming) my spill it over into another stable region that is inhospitable for us, so may it be that just because we could still gather up all the computers in the world and destroy them, Butlerian Jihad style, we may not be able to do that for a sentient, self-aware army of KILLER ROBOTS

well anyway, you understand where I'm going.. I wish I could take myself seriously long enough to say what I mean without shouting some stupid word like PROW PROW BUTTERSCOTCH RAMBOT

*sigh* I hate myself somedays.

Maybe soon everything will invert, we'll reach some kind of singularity and technology will develop itself. The things it will get up to will be so advanced and complex and beyond us that we won't even know if we're being abused or not in the process, in the same way cows don't know they're going to be made into steak. We can spend all our time in the pub and they'll probably make it better than it already is. Now I fear