Originally posted some time in 2009. Recycled for maximum blog churn. – dp
There’s been a lot of Cable TV babble about cell phones, “location based” services, and the creeping fear of Big Brother knowing where I am, what I’m buying, what I’m watching, what I’m thinking! ARRGGGH!
My advice: just relax. And if you’re really, really worried, just turn off your phone dipstick!
This has been the same fear/pseudo argument of the Luddites since the very first technologies. And I’m talking about farming. That’s right, farming, the thing that turned the wonderfully free (and woefully under-bodyfatted) hunter/gatherers into stay at home Moms and Dads. Quel Horror!
No longer free to starve to death or be eaten by cave lions, these saps in skins made a deal with the devil when they started cultivating crops, developing technologies and having the temerity to not die every time there was a famine. The gall!
Seriously, every technology comes with a tradeoff. The question that needs to be asked every single time is “Is it worth it?” The tech behind Location-based cell services is just the latest to raise the specter of Big Brother. And guess what, a lot of people (especially younger ones) will say that convenience trumps paranoia and will embrace the cool of it all.
T’was ever thus. Since the first purposely cultivated seed was shoved in the ground somewhere in/around Mesopotamia. Me, I’m splitting the difference and embracing a mild form location-based paranoia. Because Kenneth always knows the frequency.
– dp
