why do we need privacy?

[Mole]

I always just assumed privacy was a survival instinct. If you told people your weaknesses you could be exploited and killed.

Only in a literate society.

 

[Tiltyred]

The first casualty of any revolution is irony. And the second is history.

Pol Pot the great revolutionary of the twentieth century took Cambodia back to Year Zero to obliterate history. In the same way, the great American revolutionary lexicographer of the nineteenth century, Noah Webster, cut the English language off from its historical roots.

And it is now this bowdlerised form of English that you use to think. So it is no surprise you find it hard to believe privacy is a new invention. In fact I should imagine you find it hard to think of anything in historical terms. And of course that was Noah Webster's intention.

Noah Webster left you literal minded, bereft of history.

I think in bowdlerized English, bereft of history??

Ok.

It's very possible I was teasing you in my last post...

 

[Oeufa]

Only in a literate society.

Why only in a literate society? I'd have imagined the same would apply in a primal setting?

 

[Mole]

They always tell you such crap. That's because if you tell them all your secrets, they have stuff to control you by, so it's to their advantage to convince you not to have any. You either have to be incredibly boring or very very young not to have any secrets, is what I think.

In the electric world it is the boring and the bored who have secrets.

Look around you here - almost all sail under an anonymous avatar, a nom de plume. So Nineteenth Century.

The nom de plume is to protect their private identity. But the private identity is dissolving in the electron.

Why, electronically it would take me half an hour and a few dollars to discover your name and where you live and what you consume every day.

So much for privacy.

Privacy is now a confidence trick - and it is no wonder privacy finds its last hiding place in the confidence trick of MBTI.

 

[Mole]

Why only in a literate society? I'd have imagined the same would apply in a primal setting?

Enlarge your imagination by reading, "Understanding Media", by Marshall McLuhan, the patron saint of the internet.

By meeting our patron saint you will not only be enlarging your imagination but you will be improving your moral life as well.

We all need a patron saint, and he is our patron saint, the saint of the internet.

So it is better to light a candle to Saint Marshall rather than curse the darkness, and he will light a candle in your mind.

 

[Oeufa]

Enlarge your imagination by reading, "Understanding Media", by Marshall McLuhan, the patron saint of the internet.

By meeting our patron saint you will not only be enlarging your imagination but you will be improving your moral life as well.

We all need a patron saint, and he is our patron saint, the saint of the internet.

So it is better to light a candle to Saint Marshall rather than curse the darkness, and he will light a candle in your mind.

I'll certainly do that at some point in the near future. Sounds like an interesting read

EDIT: Just looked it up on this website: Marshall McLuhan understanding media | Search | CD WOW! Ireland One copy is around €15 and the other is around €90. *clicks to find out the difference*

 

[Tiltyred]

In the electric world it is the boring and the bored who have secrets.

Look around you here - almost all sail under an anonymous avatar, a nom de plume. So Nineteenth Century.

The nom de plume is to protect their private identity. But the private identity is dissolving in the electron.

Why, electronically it would take me half an hour and a few dollars to discover your name and where you live and what you consume every day.

So much for privacy.

Privacy is now a confidence trick - and it is no wonder privacy finds its last hiding place in the confidence trick of MBTI.

Why do you have such a hard on about people using their real names? Discover away, I couldn't care less, if you want to take the time and trouble. But to act as though I'm not genuine because I don't care to share my personal information with the entirety of cyber-space is ... naive, to say the least.

 

[bcvcdc]

I don't think we need privacy... but we (i) sure do want it.

 

[Unkindloving]

You're right about people wanting to avoid control and judgment.
I don't know if i lead a completely open life, but it has been far more open than anyone else's that i've come face to face with.
I want time for privacy and to be by myself or secluded with select others, but i don't hesitate to talk of what did or will take place during those times. Practically every thought i uncover is open to anyone who asks about it. Practically every action is fair game to be spoken of.

A lot of people are afraid of what lurks inside themselves or behind closed doors escaping into the bustling world of opinions. Personally, i can't see that as liberating in relation to my own personal growth. I'm better when i am fully displayed and aspects of my life are far more fulfilling.

 

[Mole]

I don't think we need privacy... but we (i) sure do want it.

And here am I walking up to your front gate, looking over your fence, and playing with your dogs when your back is turned.

I tell them, all she wants is privacy so don't tell her I slip in and play fetch with you.

Keep a straight face as far as two dogs can keep a straight face, and say nothing. You know nothing.

 

[lunalum]

Concerning the privacy of information, I keep a tiny bit of things secret from some people for my safety. Letting random people know things such as my address or safe lock or whatever could lead to my shelter being destroyed or my money for buying food to be stolen....
Other than for my security needs, I don't understand why people would keep information private either. If someone wants to know I can say most things someone wants to know and it doesn't hurt me.

But privacy in terms of being alone... I just need that because people sometimes drive me crazy and don't let me focus.

 

[sLiPpY]

why do we have "public lives" and "private lives?" is it something about the way society is constructed (normative, so we play by the rules) and/or is there something about the very nature of the human animal to always have some part of itself hidden (to escape control, avoid judgment, or to wield power, etc)? does anyone here live a completely "open" life and has no problem talking about any action? is this a cultural construct? what are is the role of privacy in sociality? also, what are the roles/functions of secrets?

People have private lives for the same reason that priest have difficulty keeping their hands off the altar boys.

 

[Ivy]

I have a hard time working out my relationship with privacy, to be honest. I will share most anything in a setting like this, where there is a degree of anonymity. And in a setting without anonymity I will share as much as I think the group would be comfortable with me sharing. (Open-book policies freak a lot of people out.) Beyond that, I keep things private for the benefit of the other people in my life--I try to strike a balance between honesty and privacy when I talk about my marriage here, out of respect for my husband. His sense of privacy is greater than mine and it would not be okay to violate that because I'm more willing to share than he is.

I need time alone much moreso than I need privacy. I'll tell anyone anything, just about, but only in short bursts of togetherness. (The exception being my husband--being with him is only marginally less "alone" than being truly alone, which is how I know he's my perfect match.)

 

[Prototype]

...I always wondered what society would be like if we always knew exactly what everyone else was thinking.

It's relevant to post what I need to say here!... I believe there has been a breach of trust within the "MadMin Collective"... I've had a B & E in my PM box and had a message to another member altered, which is an invasion of privacy.

Why the intrusion?:steam:

 

[miss fortune]

...I always wondered what society would be like if we always knew exactly what everyone else was thinking.

better than wondering what society would be like if we knew what everyone else looked like naked

but why privacy? because other people are creepy and judgemental and will either creep on you or judge you if they know all about you

 

[gromit]

I always just assumed privacy was a survival instinct. If you told people your weaknesses you could be exploited and killed.

Yeah I think this is a good point...

 

[EcK]

To change

 

[Arthur Schopenhauer]

Privacy is only a recent invention. For 200,000 years we lived in earshot of one another in tribal vilages. But with the invention of the printing press in 1440, the dream of univeral literacy was born and has only been realised recently in the West and developed countries.

And as you notice, we read a book alone, silently in private. In fact the carrels you find in your library are there to give us silence and privacy.

But the invention of the electric telegraph in 1840 put an end to all that.

For the electric telegraph led to the electric telephone, the electric radio, the electric television and the electric internet.

Ask not for whom the phone rings, it rings for thee.

And so the electric Typology tribe was born in the global village.

We are now all in electric earshot of one another just like a tribe in a village.

And privacy has come to an end. In fact the private bedroom has come to an end, as almost all of us here have the internet live in our 'private' bedrooms.

But of course we drive forward looking in the rear vision mirror at privacy, while the global village rushes towards us through the windscreen.

We can only see our private self through the rear vision mirror, but we can see the whole electronic tribe of Typology through the windscreen.

And if you haven't noticed, the windscreen is the screen in front of us at this very moment.

And it is momentous.

Lol wut?

 

[ThatGirl]

Believe it or not, I really have no secrets.

 

[Mole]

Lol wut?

Ask not for whom the phone rings, it rings for thee.

"MM - telephone - it's for you".