Not just for geeks: Here’s a really thoughtful post about Google, culture, and information privacy.
From John Gruber.
Well worth your time to read. And I like the way he’s unafraid to mention the FACT that people’s personality, ethics and character can lead their decision-making. Good on him. – P
I can see he can be painted that way but isn’t this the rule that people living in small towns used to live by?
Now we live in cities we have become accustomed to relative anonymity but as society has developed a share-everything culture we’re astounded (why?) this ethos remains true.
One of my heroes (I have many but this one has genuinely, profoundly influenced my thinking) Peter McWilliams wrote a book ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do — The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in our Free Country’ which is built on this ‘single idea’:
(The whole book is available online here:
http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/toc.htm)UPDATE: Here: http://web.archive.org/web/20070103103333/http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/toc.htm
I sort of apply the same thing to privacy. I don’t care what my friends or neighbours do with, say, fruit and vegetables, or chocolate sauce, or … and if they want to send each other pictures of their vege activities, privately (or with an expectation of privacy), it ain’t my business.
“… as society has developed a share-everything culture “
Not me baby. I’m still a private person. (But I may be a dying breed.)
That said, I know secrets give people power over you, and fear of ‘exposure’ gives those who wish you ill a grip on you — so I tend to live (trembling, sometimes) by this:
Scary, huh?
[…] talked before about one of my heroes, Peter McWilliams who, it turned out, was gay, as if that matters. (It never […]