School secretly enables laptop webcams to spy on students at home.

didn't Russian communism try to abolish privacy?

  On 2/23/2010 at 3:44 PM, GORDO said:

I may be wrong of this but i have this notion that the concept of privacy is only a western culture thing.

yes you are wrong, but lets say you are right for the sake of argument. Why does this matter in the discussion of schools using laptops to spy on their students unlawfully? i mean i understand you want to make a wider point about this but you aren't backing it up with much. Maybe you can give us your personal opinion about why you don't think the laptop thing is so bad. And i'm not trying to make you fall on your own sword here, if you think it's genuinely ok there is a possibility you have some cogent points

  On 2/23/2010 at 12:26 AM, GORDO said:

the need for privacy is an unwanted product of how we interact with each other.

 

the end of privacy could mean the end of the need for it and a change of this social dynamics for the good, i'm all up for it.

PM to GORDO: OH HAI! AHM IN YOUR 'PUTER, WATCHIN YOU MASTURBATE TO TRANNY PORN

Edit: this is the logical device known as "argument from tranny porn."

  On 2/23/2010 at 8:45 PM, Awepittance said:

  On 2/23/2010 at 3:44 PM, GORDO said:

I may be wrong of this but i have this notion that the concept of privacy is only a western culture thing.

 

yes you are wrong, but lets say you are right for the sake of argument. Why does this matter in the discussion of schools using laptops to spy on their students unlawfully? i mean i understand you want to make a wider point about this but you aren't backing it up with much. Maybe you can give us your personal opinion about why you don't think the laptop thing is so bad. And i'm not trying to make you fall on your own sword here, if you think it's genuinely ok there is a possibility you have some cogent points

my personal opinion is that this is very wrong. I don't think this particular incident is ok. I'm a very private person too, I try hard to make my online footprint untraceable to me, for example.

my intention was to make a comment about your thoughts on decentralized breaches of privacy, which was your own wider point.

when i say decentralized i'm talking about this phrase "that now ordinary citizens are taking up a fantasy detective/law enforcement role in a non conspiratorial fashion, none of these people are colluding together they just individually think they are doing the right thing by invading someone's privacy." but maybe i'm misinterpreting your words.

you represented it as a creepy/scary thing. i say it could end up as something positive; imagine if everyone had equal opportunity to spy on everyone else. at the end of the day because all the information would be easily accessible maybe we would get bored and stop caring about what everybody else does. thus the end of privacy would lead to the end of the need of privacy.

so i brought up the topic of privacy in the nature vs. nurture setting and assuming it is a nurture thing.

i can somewhat imagine a society were we are not as judgmental hypocrites with each other, where a videotape of someone caught wanking wouldn't cause the slightest controversy. One could easily draw a link (even if wrong) between the need of privacy and impractical moral values (i.e. christianity). so in any case stopping these decentralized breaches of privacy would be as hard as stopping digital piracy so given all that i said above maybe we shouldn't be so scared about it? instead maybe making sure everyone has equal opportunity to do it, yeah it's insane, i'm just putting some thoughts on the air.

btw: i understand that the word privacy doesn't even translate in some languages, hence my western culture comment.

yeah, no-one would ever abuse of that.

look at ddr, they had no privacy and they were so happy.

i might be stretching it here, but i feel that total abolition of privacy would naturally and inevitably result in the rest of the world deciding what you should concern yourself with. total and utter collapse of the individual..and i know to some people that's seen as a good thing...but not to me.

that or the opposite extreme.

Gordo - have you never read "1984"?

i think Gordo is suggesting that the opposite effect is that we all understand and interact with each other on a higher level independent from forceful thinking

but, still, yeah, whereas 1984 represents a single body in power using surveillance to coerce the rest of the populace, it always starts with the lessening of individual rights, which inevitably leads to the "mobs of the majority", which then suppose a leader or leading organization to enforce the majorities whims, the majority eventually become slaves of their own mechanisms.

  On 2/20/2010 at 7:15 PM, Boxing Day said:

I would love to have the power to spy on People

Yes. And mind-reading.

  On 2/24/2010 at 3:46 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

i think Gordo is suggesting that the opposite effect is that we all understand and interact with each other on a higher level independent from forceful thinking

 

 

but, still, yeah, whereas 1984 represents a single body in power using surveillance to coerce the rest of the populace, it always starts with the lessening of individual rights, which inevitably leads to the "mobs of the majority", which then suppose a leader or leading organization to enforce the majorities whims, the majority eventually become slaves of their own mechanisms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2fEWQdBqJw

  On 2/24/2010 at 3:24 AM, chenGOD said:

Gordo - have you never read "1984"?

read.

already pointed out but the situation in 1984 is completely different. besides being entirely fictitious.

  On 2/24/2010 at 4:20 AM, GORDO said:

  On 2/24/2010 at 3:24 AM, chenGOD said:

Gordo - have you never read "1984"?

 

read.

 

already pointed out but the situation in 1984 is completely different. besides being entirely fictitious.

fictitious, but not without basis in reality.

i could go on and on about a social history of the Stalin-era Soviet Union, but i would probably be talking to myself in circles.

btw, i dont mean to sound like Im shitting all over your idea Gordo, but historical evidence points to the maintenance of privacy as critical to a efficient society (note I said efficient instead of functional)

Its an ideal, sure, but there is very little evidence to suppose it would work anytime in the foreseeable future.

How is it completely different?

because:

  On 2/24/2010 at 3:46 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

but, still, yeah, whereas 1984 represents a single body in power using surveillance to coerce the rest of the populace.

In my novel, goverment is completely transparent because it is subject to the same thing.

I didn't use the word DECENTRALIZED just because i like it.

the problem is Gordo, that every society always has deviance. So while having a wank might not be considered freaky in your utopia, something else will be.

I agree, things like murder. but maybe most of the inconsequential stuff wouldn't.

i feel what you are getting at...but that is still a very, very, very big maybe.

also, is this really worth arguing over? obviously we are in the very abstract here.

  On 2/24/2010 at 6:47 AM, GORDO said:

I agree, things like murder. but maybe most of the inconsequential stuff wouldn't.

Not at all. You can't have good without bad. if some things that were considered deviant stop being deviant, other things would arise to take their place. having definitions of deviance is normal in a healthy society.

We all enjoy funny pics and stuff. But in your scenario, everybody has access to everyone else. So what happens when the people who populate 4chan get a hold of pictures of your mom/sister/daughter/wife/girlfriend and photoshop her having sex with a young bear? She's a pedophile beastial lover. Cool beans right?

are you saying that fabrication would be an issue? I don't think so, why would other people not have access to the source material? I could also retaliate doing the same to pics of their moms so...

on your first point: things would't stop being deviant in a strict sense, I mean we wouldn't all become furries all of a sudden or stuff like that, stuff that is deviant now would most likely still be deviant. also, we are all deviant in some sense, the point is morality would stop seeing all things deviant as wrong.

Imagine you find out that everything you do is being recorded and has always been, so probably when you find out you would feel self conscious and not act as normal, but after a while i'm sure you wouldn't give a fuck anymore since there is no real consequence. and in fact you'd act more freely than before.

anyway as smethingham says there is no point in arguing this since it is highly hypothetical i was just putting an idea forward and expanding on it because it was misinterpreted.

summing up my thoughts:

-The need for privacy is a nurture thing, it is engraved in the society we currently live in but is not inherent to the human being. it is a social byproduct caused by inconsistent and impractical moral values (or not, but wtf do we know anyway? i don't see why this thought should be dismissed so easily). Therefore I regard it as a negative thing.

-If suddenly no privacy existed then eventually it would lead to a social change where the need for privacy was gone. (another hypothetical. maybe the end of privacy would lead to the end of individuality as was argued before, but none of us is qualified to say what would actually happen).

and i guess that's it. so nevermind. go back to discussing this disgusting piece of news.

  On 2/24/2010 at 7:39 AM, GORDO said:

 

 

-If suddenly no privacy existed then eventually it would lead to a social change where the need for privacy was gone. (another hypothetical. maybe the end of privacy would lead to the end of individuality as was argued before, but none of us is qualified to say what would actually happen).

 

and i guess that's it. so nevermind. go back to discussing this disgusting piece of news.

word....this what you said right here is the big big hypothetical...especially if it was possible for privacy to "suddenly" and not gradually disappear......i don't even know where such things would be discussed in great detail, or if they are even worth delving that far into, but interesting nonetheless.

abstraction makes my head asplode lately.

I think people are conflating needing some "me time" with the issue of secrecy and public shaming. I think humanity will shed the whole public shame thing at some point. Probably at the point where genetic modification becomes commonplace and pedophiles are able to purchase robotic adolescents to fuck.

I doubt we'll ever get over the need to separate ourselves from the crowd. While we seem to be witnessing a decrease in various taboos, there seems to be a inverse trend of people becoming more averse to real-world human interaction. Go figure. Chatroulette is a perfect example.

If the schools wanted to be really cutting edge they'd just ditch brick-and-mortar locations and teach using enforced chatroulette..."let's see what I got toda - aw damn! not Mrs. Adams the topless realdoll teaching inverse kinematics again!"

update:

  Quote

1,000s of Web cam images, suit says

 

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

 

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied.

 

...

 

The system was designed to take a picture every 15 minutes until it was turned off.

 

The material disclosed by the district contains hundreds of photos of Robbins and his family - "including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping," the motion states.

 

Through Haltzman, the Robbinses on Thursday night gave The Inquirer a photo that they said was among the Web-cam images turned over by school officials. The picture shows Blake asleep in bed at 5 p.m. on Oct. 26, the lawyer said.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20100416_1_000s_of_Web_cam_images__suit_says.html

fuckin lol