Fear of losing privacy is it JUST a cultural thing?

[undergroundpanther]

Most people anticipate such a prospect with a sense of horrified disbelief, dismissing it as a science-fiction fantasy. The technology, however, already exists. For years humane societies have implanted all the pets that leave their premises with a small identifying microchip. As well, millions of consumer goods are now traced with tiny radio frequency identification chips that allow satellites to reveal their exact location.

A select group of people are already "chipped" with devices that automatically open doors, turn on lights, and perform other low-level miracles. Prominent among such individuals is researcher Kevin Warwick of Reading University in England; Warwick is a leading proponent of the almost limitless potential uses for such chips.

Other users include the patrons of the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, many of whom have paid about $150 (U.S.) for the privilege of being implanted with an identifying chip that allows them to bypass lengthy club queues and purchase drinks by being scanned. These individuals are the advance guard of an effort to expand the technology as widely as possible.
From this point forward, microchips will become progressively smaller, less invasive, and easier to deploy. Thus, any realistic barrier to the wholesale "chipping" of Western citizens is not technological but cultural. It relies upon the visceral reaction against the prospect of being personally marked as one component in a massive human inventory.

Today we might strongly hold such beliefs, but sensibilities can, and probably will, change. How this remarkable attitudinal transformation is likely to occur is clear to anyone who has paid attention to privacy issues over the past quarter-century. There will be no 3 a.m. knock on the door by storm troopers come to force implants into our bodies. The process will be more subtle and cumulative, couched in the unassailable language of progress and social betterment, and mimicking many of the processes that have contributed to the expansion of closed-circuit television cameras and the corporate market in personal data.


http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1165705809111&call_pageid=968867495754

[Missy M]

1. Why on earth would anyone want a chip implanted that would..

open doors or turn on lights. Have we become that lazy as a society. Why would anyone accept being implanted with a chip so they can purchase drinks? No chip will ever be implanted in my body unless it would be for medical reasons. I can open doors and turn on lights all by myself.

[undergroundpanther]

2. Yeah

But some people are insecure and like to compete with the joneses and show off and say lookit meeee!. Never underestimate the stupidity ,insecurity and banal competitiveness and vanity of consumer culture in a blind money spewing rush to fuck itself over to be the first one with IT!!. Really, people got TRAMPLED to death for the chance to spend hundreds of dollars to be one of the LUCKY FEW to buy a goddamn play-station 3. People are such a herd of consumer cows sometimes..And that fuckimg consume or be a nobody game is what will usher in the chipping shit. Because someone thinks it's kewel gets one, they show it off, gets social praise and than everyone impressed will want one too, so they can be part of IT!!!The marketers prey upon the insecure and left out. Misery is an endless market in a species so afraid of being different or left out, or unable to deal with anxiety.

[Missy M]

3. You are so right ....

I think it is cool when things are different, not the same. Next year the same people will go through the same ritual of spending hundreds of dollars, for Play-Station 4, and trampling each other to get it.

[undergroundpanther]

4. And when the

chips aremarketed as such a whiz bang kewel convience a must have..... Well privacy will die as we knew it.Fucking stupid sheeple . Dothey willingly want fascists to control them? Maybe they DO, as long as they gets one of IT and can look down at others and puff thier fragile egos up on IT.. Fuckers.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. I think that would be cool, quite honestly.

I want a chip so I can know what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

[Missy M]

7. They would want you to have a chip so they could determine if...

they think you have evil lurking in yours.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

5. You haven't seen anything yet

Google farm animal chipping, big brother is coming.

[Selatius]

8. If somebody famous like a movie star gets "chipped," it will help spread the trend

Because we all know people love to keep up with the "Joneses."

Also, something must be said for propaganda campaigns engineered to convince people to give up their privacy rights in the name of ease and convenience and progress.

[Mind_your_head]

9. Propaganda Pieces like this really "get under my skin"

trying to push a technology as "inevitable" when if fact it's being widely resisted. It was probably written/placed by a company (or stockholder in a company) that wants to see this technology used more widely.....it's all about the $$$$$$$, as I'm sure you know.

Anyway, for an example, a store in my area installed finger print scanning thingy's at ALL the check-outs last year (so that you could just scan your fingerprint and pay for your purchases b/c the print would be tied to your bank account). They had their employees standing by the door trying to get people to sign up for the 'service' when it was first installed.

The concept left the customers asking "Why?" :shrug: it's so easy to pull out the credit/debit card or cash....are we that lazy that we can't even pull out the card? Also, it's well-known to most of the customers that the employees at the store haven't gotten raises in QUITE A WHILE, yet the store found the money to install these expensive "white elephant" finger scanner technology things that nobody wants or uses instead of GIVING THEIR EMPLOYEES A WELL DESERVED RAISE!

When I asked a store clerk last year, 'How many signed up?' she replied, 'about a dozen on her shift'. Just last week after looking at the scanner I happened to ask the full-time cashier if those things get used much (because I've NEVER seen anyone use one when I'm in a checkout lane).....the cashier replied, 'about a dozen people the whole time it's been in place' (well, inside I was :rofl: at the pat "dozen" answer.... )

Also, I read something a while ago, probably on DU, but I'm not sure, that chipping (or putting an ankle bracelet) on a convicted pedophile who was supposed to stay away from the proximity of schools wasn't "working out very well". In that case, the felon was arrested IIRC because he was too close to a school (taking a shortcut and he didn't know the school was there he said). HOWEVER, it was a weekend or school holiday and there weren't any students at the school at that time anyway ~ yet he was still arrested! This lead me to a site that talked about how "well" this technology works on the "criminal problem" The bottom line was that the technology protected buildings, but not children and that overall (and in almost EVERY INSTANCE) this technology is GROSSLY EXPENSIVE and doesn't do/protect what it's proponents would like you to believe it does.

Leave the chips to the kitties and puppies. (However, if politicians could be chipped too I'd be all for it, but that's where I will 'draw the line' with chipping for humans)