Privacy, Big Brotherism, and Civil Reaction

[ThosStew@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/3/2001 4:48:28 PM, jbone@jump.net writes:

>
>So with privacy and anonymity in all respects rapidly disappearing, I've
>begun to wonder what the general reaction is going to be, esp. in the youth
>culture.  A couple of very sci-fi possibilities spring immediately to mind:
>


And you have the possibility, rather Clockwork Oranginatic or Ballardian, of 
privacy thugs who go around discovering (or inventing) embarrassing things 
about people and then spreading them. A kind of vandalism, like spray 
painting someone's garage door. Of course, thugs like that would be playing a 
very dangerous game. 

Another possibility would be Orwellian neo-Puritanism, in which minor human 
failings become lurid sins and society becomes very repressive. That might be 
how the thugs are brought to heel, by the full force of newly totalitarian 
law from a fed-up and disgusted citizenry.

Tom