Why the obliteration of privacy can be a good thing

As the government and conservative society encroaches more and more upon personal privacy, many people advocating the conservation thereof wish to use their privacy as a means of commiting crimes without the fear of retribution. And in reality, I believe that that constitutes a large part of why we view privacy as an essential human right. Thus, theoretically, decreasing one's privacy also decreases their ability to get away with crime because it must be done in a relatively public setting, where there will be witnesses and testimonies.

With the rapid evolution of our technology, we are becoming more constantly and inescapably in contact with one another. Sometime in the near future, every aspect of our lives will become networkable and digitally accessible. I see no way in which it can be stopped. Therefore, I feel that the obliteration of common privacy is not only possible, it is inevitable.

Why is this a good thing? Because crimes will be exponentially more difficult to hide, and will thus decrease in fear of social retribution. If it is one of mankind's key evolutionary roadmarks to create a perfect society, its citizens must not be allowed privacy, unless they are completely pure and incapable of trangressional thought. However, we ovbiously do not live in a perfect or even ideal society, so I advocate the preservation of public privacy in this time by any means necessary.

But, of course, I am quite young, and have only an unfinished public education, so I must therfore be stupid.

Antisonic, there is one critical flaw in your reasoning. You faithfully assume that Crime = Bad. In our society, crime means only to act in a way the government disagrees with. That is the reason privacy must be maintained. Because if the government controls you completely, the next time Clinton (or whoever is about to take his place) gets a crazy idea like the V-Chip or his anti-internet campaigning, society cannot defy their will.

The obliteration of privacy in our society is also viewed as a homogenization of society, that a society without privacy will turn into a society without individuals, such as the world of 1984. The viewpoint enforced on you at all times would be that of the majority. Once privacy has been done away with, the government would be free to make whatever laws that they feel necessary and we would have no way in which to fight them. It would also make change in our society more difficult to accomplish. Think about the future of civil disobedience in a world without privacy.

First off, a conservative government is not the threat to privacy you think it is. Here and now (the US, September, 2000 C.E.), it seems that the so-called liberals are more of a threat to privacy. Look at Janet Reno, appointed by Bill Clinton, and probably the biggest threat to net.privacy in the world. I've ranted on this once alread, read "Does anyone care about freedom anymore" if you want to hear all of it.

Secondly, the only way this loss of individual privacy can be anything less than a disaster is if governments and corporations are subject to the same scrutiny as individuals.

In order for the obliteration of privacy to be a good thing, two things (that come readily to mind) must happen:

1. Laws must be changed so that only those things that genuinely deserve legal penalty are forbidden.
2. People must cease to judge others for their differences on matters that are genuinely irrelevant.

Number 1 has been addressed quite succinctly by the quote that may be found here. If number 1 does not occur, the destruction of privacy will become simply a tool for governmental control over individuals.
Number 2... number 2 is harder. What is relevant? I don't think number 2 will ever be achieved by everybody to any extent satisfactory to everyone. If number 2 doesn't happen, then the lack of privacy will just mean judgemental moderation of behaviour by the moral majority. But what does it mean anyway? To stop judging people by what they do when nobody's around; if there is no privacy, things like masturbation and striking poses in your new clothes, singing to yourself (when you're someone who can't sing), talking to yourself, all these things will have to happen anyway, if the obliteration of privacy is to be considered in general to be a good thing.

Unfortunately, there's always going to be catty bitches (and yes, I use this term to insult guys as well) who will use the invasion of other people's privacy to hurt them. Two years ago a group of guys stole the diary of a friend of mine and put her through hell by releasing choice tidbits of infomation. They tried to stop me from being interested in her by telling me about how she thought '7 guys had been interested in her in two weeks'. Why care about that sort of thing? It happened in her own space, she genuinely thought that and put it somewhere where she thought she'd never need any evidence or argument. Obviously I lost interest in hanging out with them instead.

Ahem. Point is, unless we can become a gloriously tolerant commune of mutually respecting Übercool people, everyone's gonna need their space to do the crazy things that humans do. Like dance naked to Massive Attack. I do that.