Discourse 27: Respect your Privacy

An Open Letter to My Daughters

      This will be sharp and to the point.

         For five hundred years we have been engaged in systematic epistemological warfare that has manipulated all of our social beliefs to benefit power. For the purposes of this essay I speak specifically of privacy, which affects everything from property rights to the ethics of mass surveillance. As engineering techniques have improved with both the assistance of technological advancements and a greater understanding of human psychology, mass participation in a particular logos or pathos, often achieved by a captured ethos, is becoming easier to manufacture. Condensed: how we think and feel can be manipulated because they control who and what we trust. Institutions, traditions, rituals, entertainment, all help reinforce this process as time marches forward. In effect, it establishes our civilizational mythology. This is what it really means to capture the technology of culture. This is one of the prime weapons for a national security state, which happens to be the apex historical tool of power.

Our only defense as individuals to this social engineering technique is intentionality.

You alone cannot change this. Not everyone is going to understand what this even means or why it matters. This is ok. It makes no difference what “other” people think as it relates to the topic of privacy… or any other for that matter, as most people have merely adopted a manufactured reality tunnel couched in a simulacra of culture.

As I have told you elsewhere, never let society determine your morals, ethics or beliefs. This does not mean there will not be overlaps, but build and discover them yourself. Idiosyncrasy matters more than most realize.

This means, painfully as it is for me to say (halfway kidding), I expect you to disagree with me on things. Although, mentally capitulating to the leviathan would upset me far more. (not kidding)

Whatever it be, some personal ethic or opinion, or a drastically different political solution, I will respect your stance as long as you have developed it yourself and not merely adopted it superficially. This I promise.

However, there are a few things that I would ask for you to – just trust me. Give me five years of your adult life where my belief becomes yours both in your lived expression to the outside world as well as for your individual praxis. After that time once you have lived experience and time of reflection, you can either discard mine and adopt your own or you can understand why I asked of you such a thing – and why you should ask your children of the same. Respectfully.

Believe in the importance of privacy.

Respect your privacy as an individual, including not telling strangers more than they need to know about you. This includes co-workers, first dates, as well as the government.

Information about you is power, make sure you are dispensing it appropriately across the circles of trust, saving the most intimate of knowledge for those closest to you. There is wisdom in the Japanese proverb of three hearts.

This does not mean you should interact with artificiality or be dishonest, rather consider your trust one of your most valuable assets and take great care with whom you give it to. (And of course be trustworthy yourself)

As mentioned, this also includes the government and its private proxies. If you can use a password, do not give them your biometrics. Do not speak to agents of the state without an attorney. They serve the state and are there to protect its interests, not yours. It doesn’t matter if they are friendly. Never give more than you must to them. And for the love of God do not let anyone interface your mind with a computer. Even future video games will not be as they seem. There is always more.

As it relates to the government and the alleged “social contract”, take the hardline position of respecting the human right to privacy. Oppose government intrusion as an absolute. The system does not want there to be privacy as it demands total information awareness, hence why it has worked so hard to condition and transvaluate so many of our cultural beliefs in addition to changing the law. It will create the demand for its solutions - watch for this - and don’t fall for it. Lean on my belief. Trust me.

Many of your neighbors will sacrifice privacy for convenience. Perhaps some of your family and friends. Many more will trade it for the false hope of security, and they will deride you for not doing the same – especially since you have nothing to hide.

Exercise the dichotomy of control; you cannot dictate what other people do, say or believe. If they want to share their intimate details with the world, let them bury themselves. You can influence them of course, but the best way to do so, as with all things, is to live by example.

Build convictions and live them. For now, borrow one of mine. Please.

The future is littered with many new and insidious ways to attack the mind with or without your awareness. Without privacy, society will exist and be at the discretion of other people. To a large degree it already is. But it does not have to stay that way.

Liberty cannot exist without privacy.

It is that important. Privacy is the last bulwark for a free mind against the onslaught of tyranny. Maintain it. Believe in it, for yourself and your neighbors. Take a stand, it is worth it. Do it for your children…and theirs.

Humor me and adopt my conviction for a time, and I bet you will understand the benefit to you as an individual person as well as learning to see why privacy is the power of the people.

It is the key to liberty. Don’t give it to them willingly.