From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Wed Nov 11 1998 - 10:10:26 MST
Scott Badger wrote:
> >Brin had a rather extended and at time vile conversation with a number of
> us a
> >year or so ago on this list vis a avis privacy issues in general. While his
> >logic of making everyone accountable to everyone else due to total open
> >survellance would definitely result in little crime or exploitation, and
> >possibly enhance the market by fact that it would result in much better
> >price/value signals, he is, like communists/socialists in the past and many
> >social engineers today, trying to push a change of behavior which is
> totally
> >contrary to human nature. ignoring the fact that most people LIKE their
> privacy,
> >his concept has little possibility of being accepted unless the population
> is
> >scared into it by a totalitarian propaganda machine........ hmmmm, that
> sounds
> >familiar....
> >
> >Mike Lorrey
> >
>
> Really? A desire for privacy is part of human nature? Are there any
> studies that support that hypothesis? Do you mean to say that there was
> some evolutionary advantage available to those who preferred to be alone?
> The only survival value I can think of off the top of my head would be that
> when one was alone and unmonitored, one had an opportunity to hide, or to
> steal, or do something else unbeknownst to the rest of the tribe that would
> give one some sort of unfair (but effective) advantage. Any other
> advantages come to mind that might have resulted in a preference for privacy
> being hard-wired into our circuitry?
For example, when a primitive female human was having her period, she would be
sequestered from the rest of the tribe, to the point that females prefered the
privacy. Do that for thousands of years and women are going to feel very private
about their reproductive health. I could go on and describe many other
evolutionary advantages to privacy.
Mike Lorrey
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:46 MST