Friday 25 October 2013

People are pretending you have privacy.



I like privacy but get more done by selectively surrendering it.  Society may find it is better off as a hive animal only milliseconds away from each other's responses.    Privacy laws are fighting a losing battle.  Saying NO is a rationing solution.  The market solution is to let people get something back for the privacy they surrender.  A few will live in total privacy with reduced participation in the society. Others will jump right in with their entire life an open book, in trade for immediate worldwide resources and applause.  (Instead of a yard sale on Willow Crescent 8-12 Saturday morning, would you prefer to sell your old silverware to a guy in Germany via eBay for three times the price, shipping extra?) 

Ant colony filled with concrete and then excavated.
Do you want to raise walls to restrict the flow of information about your family into the hard drives of corporations and governments?  That ship has sailed.   The NSA captured information on 124 billion phones in one recent month.   VISA knows what you spend and where and when and can turn off the credit remotely at will.   Think about Facebook, too.   People are pretending you have privacy to preserve a competitive advantage they are enjoying.   Take down the walls instead, the walls that block smaller players like you and me from seeing what’s going on behind the veil of biz and gov.   (Would you pay five bucks to find who owns the car you saw misbehaving?)

You have company.
Competitors will eventually copy everything, even true Coca Cola, but it takes time for them to catch up.    You and I are competitors for the data that VISA and Ottawa spent effort to collect.  If more of us have ready access to more of the veiled data out there, the rate of innovation and the wealth and health of the whole society will trend up.  Some will choose to purchase privacy.

Pain and injustice will keep coming but trends favour the "Linked In".  Put on the big kid pants and deal with it. 

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