Human Beings are Exposed to Science and Technology Like "Transparent People"
Human beings are exposed to science and technology like "transparent people".
In modern society, people's control over their information is becoming more and more unbalanced. There are surveillance cameras on every street in the city. Every time people swipe a credit card, make a phone call, visit a web page, and take a picture, they will be recorded.
There is a passage in the book "The Driver in the Driverless Car" that describes how information is recorded in an era of ubiquitous Internet connections: "when you drive home, the cameras installed on police cars and road signs are using automated license plate recognition technology to create a database to record everything you are driving. No matter where you are, surveillance cameras at buildings and traffic stations are constantly capturing images and recording videos. When you drive into your driveway, the home automation system records the exact time of your arrival. To set the optimal temperature, the Nest thermostat will track your movement around the room. The camera and microphone on the smart TV will hear all your conversations, waiting for you to give orders. It all happened before you opened your web browser. "
People are exposed to technology like "transparent people". Companies that have access to user data hold unprecedented treasure, but the laws and guidelines related to this treasure are blank. As mobile phone users, people only have the options of "join" and "exit", and no one will click on the "user Agreement" icon in an inconspicuous part of the page, let alone read the long and obscure text behind it. Although slightly uneasy, what is more difficult for people to give up is the convenience of one-click ride and take-home delivery service.
There may be all kinds of unpredictable risks hidden in those passively accepted users and privacy agreements. For example, THERO, which is discussed in class, which is an example of how people want to protect freedom and privacy. Through a turn in its structure, THERO is able to manage our digital contact with the outside.
However, although the material is more and more abundant in modern society, the "privacy" which embodies personality and individual freedom is gradually alienated, and human beings are gradually losing their soul. In the transparent society we live in, the display and excavation of information oppresses every nerve of modern people. Byung-Chul Han wrote in his book 'Transparenzgesellschaft', "this transparent relationship is a relationship of death, it has no charm or vitality, the soul is impenetrable, complete illumination burns it, causes mental tiredness, and only the machine is transparent."
It's like living in a new type of digital "Panopticon", but people are building blocks for it. The supervisor on the watchtower can monitor the prisoner through the backlight effect, while the person being watched cannot see the monitor. "Panopticon" takes advantage of prisoners' conscious and lasting sense of exposure and isolation and surveillance for surveillance purposes.
Unlike the prisoners in the isolated "Panopticon", in a transparent society, residents connect and communicate with each other, providing protection not for loneliness and independence, but for super-communication. Byung-Chul Han wrote, "the planet that has lost its privacy is developing into a Panopticon, without walls separating the inside and the outside." In a transparent society, people voluntarily hand themselves over to panoramic gaze, where prisoners are both victims and perpetrators. "
Technology and regulation cannot prevent personal privacy disclosure, but also need moral constraints. This technology has played an important role in 'Disobedient Electronics', and people are already reflecting that technology companies are creating new forms of power that operate outside of personal awareness and public responsibility. Curbing this power requires a new means of confrontation-a means of curbing surveillance of capitalism in the name of individual freedom and democracy.
