What do you think?

I think most people would say no. Maybe claiming that a breach of privacy makes them feel uncomfortable. It would constantly nag at their mind. Plus they simply wouldn't like the idea of not being able to get away with dishonesty.

As odd as it sounds, I think that allowing a person to lie or cheat is an essential part of life. The freedom to do something wrong when someone isn't looking and possibly get away with it has been a part of the human experience since the beginning.

But is it essential? Would we be less "human" without it?

Maybe these changes in the norm are less important than we think. There are many vast differences in culture across the world. Other people live their lives in ways we don't fully understand.

Are one of these ways any better than the others? I mean, one has to be, right?

Is it the one with the most happiness overall? Or are they really equal? You can't measure potential happiness based on hypotheticals, though, can you?

In summary, I wonder if one "framework" of a human life has more value than another.

I wasn't going to say, but I started thinking about this sort of thing while thinking about politics. My idea was about having a government where leaders had to be under constant surveillance in order to prevent corruption.

That led to all sorts of questions about how the specifics would work, this thread being related to one of the questions.

Yes
or no
maybe
I don't know
can you repeat the question
...
you're not the boss of me now

There was life before facebook, and life continues after facebook, though admittedly somewhat degraded. My point is, technology and (voluntary or involuntary) surveillance does not really change the human condition.

Does civil surveillance suck? Yeah. Should we fight it? To the extent each individual feels comfortable, sure. Does the very asking of these questions imply that life goes on? Yup.

Some of the most fulfilled people on the planet -- sports stars, celebrities, movie directors, famous writers, etc. -- are watched at all times. They're doing just fine. Sure, it's not possible for, you know, Princess Diana to lead a fulfilling life, but that's a pretty rare outcome.

I'm totally on board with the "Fair Play" concept for victimless crime. If you are going to give me a speeding ticket, you should spend the time and energy having a guy out there with a radar gun, because the traffic camera is just cheating. But it is difficult to extrapolate that to other crimes. We don't want fair play for terrorists or rapists; we want them out of the way as quick as possible. That is where the balance has to be struck.

Nobody likes breaches of privacy because we all have private lives. Sure, some perfect Quaker who never sins might only care about this out of principle, but the rest of us care because we all really do have something we'd like to keep hidden. Nobody wants the RIAA knocking on their door every time they pirate a song, and none of us want our porn habits recording anywhere at all ever. And since this is a forum of writers, I guarantee you that our search histories would be enough to make Bin Laden blush. I guess that all goes back to fair play again. That's really the thing that was stand to lose.

So yeh, privacy is great and we all want it, but at the same time we all want to use all the tools at our disposal to halt the truly awful crimes, so it becomes a matter of finding what balance we prefer. But more importantly, it becomes a matter of promoting that balance.

My idea was about having a government where leaders had to be under constant surveillance in order to prevent corruption.

But then who watches the watchmen watchers? In our system, we already have the best anti-corruption tool at our disposal; the vote. That we don't use it is totally our fault.

Yep. People believed they were being watched and judged for thousands of years and I'm sure one or two of them were well adjusted.

But then who watches the watchmen watchers? In our system, we already have the best anti-corruption tool at our disposal; the vote. That we don't use it is totally our fault.

deeeeeep shit

I'm wondering how culture might change after hypothetical surveillance began. I don't think we'd smoothly adopt a more publicised way of life, obviously- Bits of what we do now would be taken away or added to at different points and there'd probably be a lot of experimental trends. Sort of like the Internet revolution. Maybe we'd become more theatrical in all our actions because we feel the need to perform, or maybe we'd just give up looking good because we can't always keep it up. Maybe there'd be a lot more introspection and criticism, or maybe we'd just get desensitised to knowing things people don't want us to know. Or we might not even think in terms of knowing and not knowing, just about how to present unpleasant facts.

And I mean, there's sure to be that one group who acts atrociously all the time just because someone somewhere is watching, and it's probably going to involve fursuits.

My bit is that the only way to be happiest is to choose to be happy. One of my favorite quotes is "Happiness is a choice, not a consequence." No matter if we are being watched, attacked, or starved there are going to be people who are going to be able to deal with it and others who won't. The one thing we can try to do when things change, for better or worse, is to choose to be happy. That's one part mental, and one part doing what we can do to improve our situation.

What do you think?

I think most people would say no. Maybe claiming that a breach of privacy makes them feel uncomfortable. It would constantly nag at their mind. Plus they simply wouldn't like the idea of not being able to get away with dishonesty.

As odd as it sounds, I think that allowing a person to lie or cheat is an essential part of life. The freedom to do something wrong when someone isn't looking and possibly get away with it has been a part of the human experience since the beginning.

But is it essential? Would we be less "human" without it?

Maybe these changes in the norm are less important than we think. There are many vast differences in culture across the world. Other people live their lives in ways we don't fully understand.

Are one of these ways any better than the others? I mean, one has to be, right?

Is it the one with the most happiness overall? Or are they really equal? You can't measure potential happiness based on hypotheticals, though, can you?

In summary, I wonder if one "framework" of a human life has more value than another.

I wasn't going to say, but I started thinking about this sort of thing while thinking about politics. My idea was about having a government where leaders had to be under constant surveillance in order to prevent corruption.

That led to all sorts of questions about how the specifics would work, this thread being related to one of the questions.

go back to /r/conspiracy with your fucking tinfoil