Security vs. Privacy

[Pekka]

Kid, lol

[Japher]

All Security is an illusion, privacy however is real

Illusion vs. Real?

Real.

[Q Classic]

I always wonder about the creepy mortician necrophiliacs tho'.

You've been watching late night tv again (the stuff nye takes issue with) haven't you?

Better a creepy mortician necrophiliac doing things to your body than a creepy mortician necrophiliac knowing all of your shopping habits, where you live, what packages you're carrying, and using those things against you while you're still alive.

Actually, on second thought, we should just ban creepy mortician necrophiliacs.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

I always wonder about the creepy mortician necrophiliacs tho'.

You've been watching late night tv again (the stuff nye takes issue with) haven't you?

I refuse to answer on the grounds of right to privacy.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Security is not freedom.

Is insecurity freedom?

[Q Classic]

Is insecurity freedom?

In Demolition Man, everybody's safe from dangerous things. There is ever-present security. They're also all completely unfree. They're not oppressed, but the instant they catch a whiff of real freedom, they panic and the security apparatus collapses.

The East German state was a masterwork of security.

===

Insecurity is freedom, yes. Sure, you don't have a freedom from, say, want, but you have the freedom to try to get exactly what you want, rather than what someone else thinks you want.

When you're first tossed out into the world after graduation, you're pretty much insecure. However, you also have the freedom to do whatever the **** you want, be it go on a twenty-year long journey across the world, or to go straight to work at Credit Suisse.

If your future were "secure", you'd already have a career planned out for you. Like all to many other asian ameicans still under the thrall of their parents, I've seen many of them get funnelled into engineering, medicine, or business, whether they liked it or not.

What it boils down to is this:
Security is freedom from fear, but unfreedom from change, adventure, flux, novelties.
Privacy doesn't infringe on c, a, f, or n, and the fact that you get some modicum of control over who knows what about you gives a nice relief from certain aspects of fear.

===

Simply put, I'd rather live in a state where the future constantly keeps me guessing, which in turn drives me alternately towards depression and mania, because it allows me to choose just how vibrant the world can be. It'll afford me the privacy of doing things how I see fit, and if I wish to leave the world and become some hermit in the woods of Idaho, it'll let me.

The alternative, which is a secure world where I know where things come from, what things will happen, and might even have some things set out for me, feels stale. I might as well be dead, since when that happens, I'll also know exactly where I'll be.

===

If that makes any sense.

[Kidlicious]

Sure it makes sense, but extreme. I have a hard time believing that people actually have such extreme views. Freedom is a good thing, but insecurity is not. Ultimately I think that people are more adverse to insecurity than they let on, especially when they get older.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Lancer
Privacy until a city gets nuked, then security.

Lancer's earthly wisdom

I agree.

[Q Classic]

kid, people get conservative when they get older too.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
kid, people get conservative when they get older too.

Not me.

[Proteus_MST]

I agree with Spiffor,
both are important and therefore a balance has to be found between them.

For example if you install Security Cams everywhere (even in private appartments [and of course, also in bedroom and toilet ]) and also enable the state to monitor everything you make on your PC (i.e. all PCs are equipped with a mandatory built in keylogger)
you have a lot of security and the chances that anyone will commit a crime are minimal (and if he does, he will be caught very soon).
But I wouldn´t want tpo live in such a world with maximum security (and no privacy at all).

[Az]

What's the problem with security cams on streets, though?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Az
What's the problem with security cams on streets, though?

I for my part have no problem with them (at least if they aren´t installed in every street but just in crowded streets / places [like the streets/places within the city centres])
as they might really increase security a great deal with just a limited loss to your privacy (after all you are in a public place where, even without cams, your actions could be seen by a lot of other people)
but there seem to be a lot of people for whom even this slight intrusion into their privacy seems to be too much (there are lots of protests every time someone suggests to install cams in german city centres, like they already exist in GB)

[Az]

I know, the question wasn't really directed at you, but more to help me understand this fear.

[Q Classic]

I have no problems with security cams on the street, honestly, so long as sousveillance never becomes illegal.