Future (Present?) of Privacy
You have no privacy.
You can take my statement one of two ways: the ramblings of one who fears God and knows that God knows all that has been, is, and will be, or you can view it as the ramblings of one who has faith that we will not destroy ourselves (completely) before we develop amazing new technologies in the next 1000 years.
Your choice. For the sake of this argument, however, I'm going to focus on #2 (which is what some of you may think this article is...a bunch of #2)
As I did with my post "The Future of Christianity I", I will first look to the past to predict the future. Furthermore, I shall explain the present.
Can you imagine being a murderer and getting away with your crimes (let's say Jack the Ripper) and you have someone from the future approach you and tell you that they were able to solve the murders using a technology that was unheard of (indeed, undreamt of) in your time? The "Jack the Ripper" case may be a far out example (for now) but there are more and more cases that are being solved in ways that we are starting to take for granted (DNA, the OJ trial notwishstanding) that were unheard of only a few short decades ago.
What does this have to do with privacy? Only to illustrate the leaps in technology that we have seen in recent years and to extend the idea behind Moore's Law to cover technology in general, not just raw computing power.
In simple terms (with some literary license thrown in) it states that computing power will double every two years. Over the course of the last 40 years many (including Gordon Moore himself, the law's "creator" and namesake) have proclaimed it "dead" stating that we have run up against the limits of the laws of physics relating to computing power, but we have only barely begun to see a slowing of this awesome phenomenon.
So where does this put us with regards to privacy?
First, let me state that you have no privacy from the future. Using the "cold case" example above, I believe it is only a small leap to claim that future generations will be able to reconstruct amazing details of our current lives, even to the point of being able to "view" events of the past. Maybe it will be quantum computers that allow for the massive calculations necessary to determine what chain of events caused matter to be in its current state (i.e. what did we in the past do to create what the future "present" is like). Maybe it will be something so pedestrian as a giant telescope transported to the edge of the galaxy at super-light speeds and pointing back at us to watch the streets of a historical Earth.
Whatever. The point is, what you do right now (good thing you're at *this* site, and not some *other* website...) is subject to being viewed by future generations.
Are you comfortable with that?
I used to say that we only have privacy from our contemporaries. After all, the Super Telescope Peering Into My Bedroom isn't going to be invented in time for my great-grandchildren to see. Then again, who is to say that future generations will not also be "resurrecting" my contemporaries? Maybe it will be one of my very good friends (say, Ryan) who plays a part in making this viewer into the past possible after he is "regenerated" in the year 2567.
Discussions of life essense and spirit aside, are you comfortable with future incarnations of your neighbors knowing all about you? We all may find ourselves (in a scientific worldview) resurrected at some date in the future where our pasts are all open books. Are you living a life such that you are comfortable with that?
Maybe Dogbert (or is it Dilbert?) is right that God is only the result of our combined intellects as the Internet brings us together into a great "hive mind". That god truly is one to be feared!
1984 is gone, but 2984 promises to be far more interesting, and quite possibly far more disturbing.
And I believe (one way or another) you and I will be around to see it.
-Brian
You can take my statement one of two ways: the ramblings of one who fears God and knows that God knows all that has been, is, and will be, or you can view it as the ramblings of one who has faith that we will not destroy ourselves (completely) before we develop amazing new technologies in the next 1000 years.
Your choice. For the sake of this argument, however, I'm going to focus on #2 (which is what some of you may think this article is...a bunch of #2)
As I did with my post "The Future of Christianity I", I will first look to the past to predict the future. Furthermore, I shall explain the present.
Can you imagine being a murderer and getting away with your crimes (let's say Jack the Ripper) and you have someone from the future approach you and tell you that they were able to solve the murders using a technology that was unheard of (indeed, undreamt of) in your time? The "Jack the Ripper" case may be a far out example (for now) but there are more and more cases that are being solved in ways that we are starting to take for granted (DNA, the OJ trial notwishstanding) that were unheard of only a few short decades ago.
What does this have to do with privacy? Only to illustrate the leaps in technology that we have seen in recent years and to extend the idea behind Moore's Law to cover technology in general, not just raw computing power.
In simple terms (with some literary license thrown in) it states that computing power will double every two years. Over the course of the last 40 years many (including Gordon Moore himself, the law's "creator" and namesake) have proclaimed it "dead" stating that we have run up against the limits of the laws of physics relating to computing power, but we have only barely begun to see a slowing of this awesome phenomenon.
So where does this put us with regards to privacy?
First, let me state that you have no privacy from the future. Using the "cold case" example above, I believe it is only a small leap to claim that future generations will be able to reconstruct amazing details of our current lives, even to the point of being able to "view" events of the past. Maybe it will be quantum computers that allow for the massive calculations necessary to determine what chain of events caused matter to be in its current state (i.e. what did we in the past do to create what the future "present" is like). Maybe it will be something so pedestrian as a giant telescope transported to the edge of the galaxy at super-light speeds and pointing back at us to watch the streets of a historical Earth.
Whatever. The point is, what you do right now (good thing you're at *this* site, and not some *other* website...) is subject to being viewed by future generations.
Are you comfortable with that?
I used to say that we only have privacy from our contemporaries. After all, the Super Telescope Peering Into My Bedroom isn't going to be invented in time for my great-grandchildren to see. Then again, who is to say that future generations will not also be "resurrecting" my contemporaries? Maybe it will be one of my very good friends (say, Ryan) who plays a part in making this viewer into the past possible after he is "regenerated" in the year 2567.
Discussions of life essense and spirit aside, are you comfortable with future incarnations of your neighbors knowing all about you? We all may find ourselves (in a scientific worldview) resurrected at some date in the future where our pasts are all open books. Are you living a life such that you are comfortable with that?
Maybe Dogbert (or is it Dilbert?) is right that God is only the result of our combined intellects as the Internet brings us together into a great "hive mind". That god truly is one to be feared!
1984 is gone, but 2984 promises to be far more interesting, and quite possibly far more disturbing.
And I believe (one way or another) you and I will be around to see it.
-Brian
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