James Gleick provides us a picture of a world in which security is much a bigger deal than it ever will be; and believes we live in it. He notes all the different companies and parts of government that hold so much information about us as if they were working together against us. And
what slaughter are we being led to as sheep? (end of pg. 5) Let’s say in 100 years, everyone will have access to any information about anyone. So? If they use that information for evil, will they not also be in the spotlight for everyone else to judge?
See, the advancement of technology, though it creates a more complicated society, does not and cannot corrupt society. Only we, the people, can “poison the soul of (this) nation”(pg. 5). With the information age advancing at a steady rapidity toward the big ambiguous future, as does time, there is no reason to fear what may come. Things will naturally equal out. In the old days of the nineteenth century, people did have more of a “small-town civility”(pg. 7). And they knew everything about everyone in their town. Now, our reach is “thousands of times longer” (pg. 7), but the effects still are in a balance. Technology provides an ease in manual-labor, while increases the amount of mind-labor (longer hours studying whatever technology we put into play that makes our lives “easier”). Information about one’s self will not be as private, but it takes trust that the companies that have your personal information will do with it what they say, and no more. It also takes understanding and knowledge to know who to give it out to, and who not.
Everyone is under the same rule, when it comes to privacy. Though our personal information is up for grabs, so is everyone elses. Those who find it easy to find out all about you are, in turn, easy to find out about. Privacy only becomes a problem when you violate punishable laws or sociological laws. Everyone is faulty, and no one can hold you up to being perfect. So, even if a future comes when everyone can know almost anything about you, there is no need to fear, for you can know all you want about them.
There is no need to revive the old times when society was simple. Simplicity can be recreated in your life by having a balance in your life… time management of personal sorts. Life cannot get easier, but it then cannot get much harder. We are in control of our actions, and accountable for them. If society changes, we adapt. It’s our nature.