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Dan Smolinske
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Zero Privacy: Culture

In this future, technology advances in such a way that privacy becomes obsolete. In other words, no one has decided to give up privacy, it's just that trying to hold onto it is like trying to keep the horse and buggy around when everyone else has cars - it's a losing battle and isn't going to work in the long run.

The basic technology that allows this is untraceable, stealth micro-drones. They can be created anonymously and cheaply using 3D-printer farms. Defenses are possible but don't work 100% of the time, so any person, place or system can be compromised eventually. These drones also allow remote physical access to computer systems, and therefore given time will also allow an attacker to bypass any computer security.

For the purpose of this question, assume that the absolute best security in the world (government w/unlimited resources) can only keep information secure for a maximum of 6 days.

This is too broad of a scenario for one question, so this one will specifically focus on Civilian Culture.

How would zero privacy impact culture - things like relationships, schooling, child-rearing, job hunts, etc.

Edit: To help keep this narrow answers should be based on a western culture, such as the US, Canada, France, etc.

Updates For comments/questions:

  1. I am looking for implications on a stable end state, not the transitionary phases.
  2. I will be asking other questions to follow up on Government (politics, corruption, crime & law enforcement, etc), on Military, and on Business. So this question is mostly about the various interpersonal relations - is that narrow enough or does it need to be reduced further?
  3. Drones aren't known to be able to defeat natural biological defenses yet (or rather, solutions to that problem aren't compatible with an effective drone). So thoughts and your internal body structure are safe, minus what a drone could obtain through most external scanning.
  4. Security defines how long it takes for an area to be compromised, but once it's compromised anything that happens after that point is known immediately. You can have a top secret facility that's totally secure, but as soon as you start to use it - information or physical objects moving in and out - you open up holes and the countdown starts.
Dan Smolinske
  • 34.7k
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