panopticon pizza
by John at 7/26/2004 03:26:00 PM
Ordering pizza in the Panopticon society (requires Flash). Hilarious, and sadly, probably true within the next decade. (via Boing Boing)
Goose the Blog 2.0
"Oh, ha! Sarcasm: The last refuge of sons of bitches!"
I guess I understood the movie differently. I thought it was about corporations collecting data on us. My understanding is that there has been a push for relaxation of privacy laws regarding customer data (e.g. different businesses owned by the same corporation could share data, like banks, insurance companies, pizza parlors, etc.) that, coupled with the creation of huge conglomerate corporations, coupled with the ability to store and process greater amounts of data, would make the kind of interaction in the video possible. The only thing that makes what we saw in the video not possible *right now* is that databases are not necessarily shared or easily compatible. Regulatory and technological changes could fix that "problem." (Of course, the voting records are not very rich - gov'ts only know whether a person has voted in an election or not, and with which party they are registered; nor do we currently have a national ID, but they have been proposed)
And as far as your theory goes, it's a straw man. The ACLU never says anything like what you describe, neither on the page with the video or on the supporting pages:
http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=16021&c=39
I think you're giving the pizza delivery guy a little bit too much credit (NO TIP FOR YOU!). Besides who wants to buy from Pizza Palace when I can buy from the Mom & Pop Pizza shop next door that's not attached to the information grid.
The beauty of capitalism is that the consumer has a tremendous amount of power. Consumers won't stand for such invasiveness. Power to the people!
Well, this post was originally just supposed to be a joke, but I think it is an interesting topic. While it is not a huge concern of mine, I think the concept is something that we will find worrying over the next several years. So, I'll risk extending this discussion past the point of dimishing returns.
"The beauty of capitalism is that the consumer has a tremendous amount of power. Consumers won't stand for such invasiveness. Power to the people!"
Absolutely! But this can happen only if consumers are aware that the invasion of privacy exists, and if they are given the option to avoid it. In today's world, you can't stay off these kinds of private databases unless you avoid medical insurance, credit cards, banking, and the like, which are all pratically necessities. Even the local pizza restaurant (Pat's) was aware of my address (based on caller ID) and knew my last order (at least). And of course, consumer choice will in no way keep anyone off government databases (property ownership, criminal records, DMV, employment, etc). That's why I think that, in addition to consumer choice, regulations on industry are important (e.g. keeping medical records confidential) and that we need to monitor and constrain the amount and kinds of data our own government keeps. Databases serve a purpose (law enforcement, taxation, improved efficiency and marketing) but Americans also have an expectation of privacy, and we have to look out for that if we expect to keep it.
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