[ale] a Google <feature!> OT

[Jim Philips]

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On Thursday 22 April 2004 14:59, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> I think it is a good idea. Now if my 5 year walks out the front door
> while I take a nap on Sunday and gets lost, all he needs to tell the
> neighbor/cop/adult who is helping him is his phone number which he
> knows, and they can get him home.
>
> There is a knee-jerk reaction that people have when they find out that
> something that used to be hard is now easy because of a computer. Once
> privacy is actually a constitutionally protected right, then there is a
> legal aspect of this stuff to be concerned about.

I believe in privacy myself. But when I think about it from a historical 
perspective, I know it's a fairly recent concept and maybe a temporary one. I 
think the idea of privacy only came about when more and more people moved 
from villages to large urban areas, where they acquired an anonymity that 
wasn't possible before. That anonymity has gone on for a long time. But it 
only existed because technology hadn't yet made it possible to know so much. 
Technology is bringing us back to the state of the village, where everybody 
knows everything about everybody. I don't know whether to be nervous or 
celebrate.
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