From: Spike Jones (spike66@ibm.net)
Date: Fri Aug 25 2000 - 22:12:19 MDT
> > ...As society becomes more transparent,
> > the prudish must be displaced from positions of power, replaced by the
> > tolerant and cool. This is kinda already happened in the Silicon Valley,
> > the charge being led by those who started Apple. spike
> GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> Spike, I'd like to think that this is automatically true, but I don't think
> it is. Small rural communities were very transparent in the past, and they
> weren't necessarily characterized by high levels of tolerance. Check out
> "The Crucible"
Right! It is *not* automatically true, we need to *make* it true. Past
transparent societies have failed in this regard. Transparency is increasing,
there is little we can do to reverse that. There are no laws to stop people
from developing the technologies. We must make it illegitimate and unethical
to oppress people for doing anything from S+M to good old fashioned
butt-scratching.
Society's values *can* be changed, even if it is a long, slow process. As
transparency increases, we must compensate with fewer laws and fewer
societal moralistic hangups. Otherwise we end up with a society that
would make The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter look libertarian in
comparison. We must work out these problems now, for if humankind
manages to work out space hab modules, there will be very little privacy
there, as well as the early Mars bases. spike
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