White Noise, 1984, and a Great Big Calculator
*Click* If you happen to be near the bathroom door, and you watch someone go in and shut it, there is a tendency to hear that lock click. For some reason, it is louder than anything else. It is a message: Don't come in and Don't even try. Like many people, I believe that that is really the heart of the inner sanctum that would be privacy. Unlike many people though, I don't really expect other daily activities to be as private.
With all of these terrifying revelations about the NSA spying and collecting data, Facebook being sued for misusing your ability to 'like' something, and the appearance of police as soldiers, I think we have to dig deeper into some fundamental elements of the abstract concept of 'control,' and get to the core of our concerns. What is privacy? Privacy is a version of control. You control what people see, hear, smell (ugh), and especially KNOW about your life. Assuming people care, these are facts that you would like to choose whether people know them or not. I generally don't harbor this great need for control. I tweet and tumblr, which post to Facebook. I broadcast most of my life on a daily basis. Under these clothes, I am totally naked.
(OK, calm down) This is where the Great Big Calculator comes in. When philosophers discuss the tension between Free Will vs Determinism, there is a postulate that states that such a mechanism or calculation exists that on a grand scale, determines all of the actions that will occur, as a result of actions that have occurred, down to the molecule (Newtonian physics). One atom pushes another, traceable since the dawn of time. Add to this model the concept of higher dimensions, i.e. the 5th dimension, which recognizes counterfactuals or events that COULD have happened. If someone had a lot of time on their hands, they could invariably create an entire logarithm of the choices that you make, opinions you would derive, tastes you pursue, etc. E.G. If I had access to an infinite, or maybe even just a large number of sketch artists, I could eventually develop an accurate picture of you naked on the toilet. Bye Bye Privacy. "OK, Frank, so go and post a naked photo of yourself RIGHT NOW online."
(No, really. Calm down) The reason why I don't personally find this idea attractive is because the posting of one photo is essentially calling attention to a single piece of presumably private data. This is where part two comes in: the concept of White Noise. If you are a musician or have worked in the music industry lately, you are aware of the constant struggle to get XYZ act to gain critical mass or even get heard, period. There are so many artists, utilizing so many outlets, with so much capacity and stimuli, that the odds are so staggeringly low that an artist can command "all eyes on me."
(OK, maybe just one) The NSA claims to be collecting Metadata. The term is being used colloquially to indicate the structure and the logistics of people's daily activity, and not the content of the activity, itself. If the music industry is having trouble dealing with White Noise or signaling out the cream of the crop as a result of White Noise, then what chances do the NSA have with the scope of the Metadata that they are tracking? This would be Super Duper White Noise, no? It would be like the nerd that highlights every line in his textbook, thinking that it is all important, and when he reviews it, he finds a yellow book. Legally, I could sit out on an overpass, overlooking a highway, and record cars that go by, the drivers in them, what they are wearing, what fast food wrappers they have in their car, etc. That's a lot of data, obtained in plain view as permitted by the Fourth Amendment. The NSA is supposedly, similarly looking at patterns of data, but to the length that they are going, it would appear that they are aiming to build another Great Big Calculator. A carbon copy of the world, too difficult to track and peruse. Currently, there are attempts by the government to seek private institutions to store all of this Metadata. One suspicion takes the route of the blackmailed: the government is trying to save the dirt until they can use it. Another possibility is that there is just too much White Noise. This leads to the opposite tension in the political argument: security. People are far more cynical about entrusting their security to the government, and rightly so. Take the militarization of the police force in the country today.
The average citizen is very fearful of the Orwellian 1984 scenario. The tank going down Main Street. The anti-cosmetic appearance of a police force that looks like the very soldiers we put in Baghdad. How do you think those people felt seeing the same thing? It is partially arguable that police militarization is reactionary to the state and condition of society. The laws that seek to protect us also provide safety for the people in uniform seeking to protect us. Cue the NRA wanting we citizens to gear up like we are back in Da Nang, and they expect the police to stand down and walk around with PR-24's only?? Please. Equal and opposite reaction. Expect it, gun nuts. Newton rears his head again.
Others will rightly argue that fear is being used as a police tactic. We may also say that fear is the source of the desire for privacy and security. They are initiatives guided by emotion to gain control, and they are illusory. Understand and respect your emotions, and you can move forward toward appreciating those that try to protect us, and to those that seek to hide in the dark and judge us on our personal choices, habits, and appearance... *CLICK* FFWY http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/01/11/facebook-lawsuit-like/4430283/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/17/politics/obama-nsa-changes/ https://www.aclu.org/militarization
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