The Private Eye (by Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martins with Muntsa Vicente), a sci-fi graphic novel, explores society’s views on technology by defying what the reader may expect by portraying a society that strongly opposes and fears current world attitudes towards technology. Privacy in this world is seen as so exceedingly important that society in it has completely rejected the internet. They still advance technologically, but in a different direction than in the real world, and use various kinds of masks and other appearance altering technologies for the sake of privacy. They gravitate towards these types of technology because of familiarity, and deny anything that could potentially compromise their privacy, like the internet. Essentially, it’s a moral thing, but to the degree that threatening privacy would be like threatening their freedom. Privacy is part of what being a human is to these people. It’s a natural thing that everyone should have to them. This is where The Private Eye and real life are most alike in that one’s idea of what it is to be human determines willingness to accept new technologies. Familiarity is what causes this idea of what human is when it comes to accepting new technology or ideas.
In real life, people generally enjoy the ideas of sci-fi-esque technologies in theory. The reason many inventions in science fiction don’t actually exist is because they go beyond what people consider human, at least the doable ones. Sure, technology is intended to
Though the consequences of citizen’s actions through technology today are not as severe or are non punishable, they do not take the government’s surveillance as seriously as the citizens of Oceania did in 1984. One NSA system can reach about 75% of all US Internet traffic, communications by foreigners and Americans (Gorman n. pag.). The US government's defense to surveillance claims is that the justification is National Security (Calamur n. pag.)., and this may be true, but the question of the freedom to privacy ratio, as a free nation, is still undecided. One way surveillance is now even more accessible is due to Google Glass. "With Google Glass, nobody's pointing a camera... phone. You no longer know if you're being filmed... an unspoken social rule is being violated" (Brown 42). and gives the government the ability to see from the point of view of anyone. With most every person you meet having quick access to some sort of recordable technology, it is easy to have your actions recorded or documented without your knowledge. The information can be easily spread around the world without your knowing or permission with just a simple touch. As said before, “.....an unspoken social rule is being violated” (Brown 42), taking away the sense of privacy and security felt by many Americans. Another form of surveillance, used by specifically the NYPD, is the use of undercover cops. Since The Occupy Wall Street
Everyday technology is advancing and has become part of people’s everyday life, from phones, cars, computers, and even the light switches in a room. With all this technology, it would be easy to use it for other things then what they were intended for. For example what if someone wanted to control what another person could do such as sleeping or going places. It would not not be that hard to try and control another human being, or even worse being watched every single moment of everyday for the rest of their life. That idea is not as farfetched as it may seem now with even more phones, computers, televisions and cameras in general. Technology is taking humanity nearer and nearer to world of Big Brother and the worse part is that if they are not careful, Big Brother could raise without any citizen ever knowing.
In the twenty first century, everyone is gluing their eyes to bright screens, and keeping their minds and mouths shut. The public mindlessly releasing information through dangerous domains, like the Internet, poses a great issue. Citizens do not realize where their information can be used and why it is used. This unfortunate circumstance is seen in Peter Singer’s “Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets.” Although there is a sensation of isolation for the public in this century, there should still be a great amount of openness when it comes to social and political events that involve information, and the ways that data is collected for these purposes.
“Antarctic penguins detect the precise call of their chicks among the 150,000 families in the nesting site” (Christin 96). If only it were this easy to know who you were talking to online. This leads me to Peter Singer’s “Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets” which he explains that being watched through surveillance increases our morals. And Brian Christians “Authenticating” discusses the importance of artificial intelligence and what makes us human. Both of the articles listed describes how technology continues to transform into a more modern web and gives the citizens, who use it, less security, which results in chaos within the government and society. Consequently, new technology does not make it harder to be
Surveillance is not a new thing. In fact, espionage, tracking, and sleuthing were part of society ever since 5000 B.C. But in the rise of the modern era, the idea of surveillance in the public eye serves as a controversial topic of discussion. People everywhere complain about the existence of security cameras, government tracking, and the right to privacy. Such problems, however, are not due to the sudden discovery of surveillance, but the modern abuse of it. Seeing the disastrous effects of over surveillance from George Orwell’s 1984, the public rightfully fears societal deterioration through modern surveillance abuse portrayed in Matthew Hutson’s “Even Bugs Will Be Bugged” and the effects of such in Jennifer Golbeck’s “All Eyes On You”. The abuse of surveillance induces the fear of discovery through the invasion of privacy, and ensures the omnipresence of one’s past that haunt future endeavors, to ultimately obstruct human development and the progress of society overall.
Rosen portrays our society as completely exposed, giving up all privacy to join, and fit in with the “naked crowd”. Rosen claims that we willing give up all power of privacy in order to fit in with society and be accepted as someone that can be trusted through exposure. He claims that image is the key to establishing trust, not through a relationship or conversation. His thesis presents his views on the subject, “has led us to value exposure over privacy? Why, in short, are we so eager to become members of the Naked Crowd, in which we have the illusion of belonging only when we are exposed?”(Rosen) he states that we value exposure over privacy, and will give away privacy to fit in.
With new technology rolling out onto the market seemingly everyday, the privacy of many is disappearing and has even become nonexistent. With many scandals over the past few years, government agencies have been accused of using these new communication resources as means to keep a watchful eye over their citizens. This is the very topic discussed by Peter Singer in his essay “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets”. Singer discusses the benefits and pitfalls that have come from these communication innovations, going in depth on the tactics and resources used by civilians as well as governments to keep track of each other. Singer presents strong premises that argue for the conservation of the individual privacy rights while also arguing for governments to become more transparent, creating an overall controversial element to his essay, as he is only half invested in transparency as a whole between civilians and the body that governs them, that comes off as somewhat unconvincing as the two arguments contradict each other.
As a growing topic of discussion, privacy in our society has stirred quite some concern. With the increase of technology and social networking our standards for privacy have been altered and the boundary between privacy and government has been blurred. In the article, Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets, Peter Singer addresses the different aspects of privacy that are being affected through the use of technology. The role of privacy in a democratic society is a tricky endeavor, however, each individual has a right to privacy. In our society, surveillance undermines privacy and without privacy there can be no democracy.
Fear is inevitably tied to the common saying “I am watching you”. When one’s actions are constantly monitored and privacy being relentlessly invaded, the individual soon will possess a sort of fear. In the novel Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, the government uses surveillance as a tool for exploiting the privacy of the people which then engages their fear.
Societies, around the world, have always had the desire to control their members and manipulate their reality. With the help of technology, this might be achieved easier than previously believed. Using something as ordinary as your phone will give the government access to one-way constant and unauthorized surveillance. Your phone is also a way for media outlets and corporations to get you to purchase their products by constantly bombarding you with ads about things that you might be interested in. Since using our phones and seeing ads are so familiar to us, we don’t truly realize how the government and media outlets are manipulating and spying on us. Works of fiction such as The Truman Show and Neuromancer, have attempted to defamiliarize these concepts by showing them at work on a larger scale. Both protagonists, Truman and Case, respectively, have fallen victim to manipulated realities and unauthorized surveillance. Authority figures, in these works, are using
As we invest our lives into the allurements of the Internet, our privacy has stowed itself into the relative anonymity of vast city populations. But these precious moments of privacy, hidden in the over abundance of lives and routines, will soon be threatened by facial recognition technology (Frey 2016). Any negative connotations surrounding surveillance is reciprocated by the Orwellian dystopia which is popular for its pessimistic perspective. Although these visions of a restrictive surveillance state are just fictional ambiguous representations, their concerns should not be easily dismissed (Richards 2013). Subconsciously, derived from Orwell’s ideas, we recognize privacy’s role in the effort to avoid dehumanizing a country, however, according to Neil Richards (2013, 1934), “we lack an understanding of what ‘privacy’ means in this context and why it matters”. It is most critical that we address these questions now as facial recognition technology becomes increasingly prominent in our everyday lives.
The words, “Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say” were said by Edward Snowden who is a computer professional in America. Similarly, the essays “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” “Web Users Get as Much as They Give,” and “Facebook Is Using You” from Nicholas Carr, Jim Harper, and Lori Andrews respectively points out that the internet privacy is good and bad. However, the articles by Carr and Andrews are based on the negative side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is not good. On the other hand, Harper’s article is based on the positive side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is good and scary, but people need to be careful of their own information and browsing histories, and websites. Jim Harper’s essay is more relevant and reasonable than the Nicholas Carr and Lori Andrews’s essays. However, Harper seems more persuasive to readers because he believes that the internet is good if people use it in a right way, whereas Carr and Andrews believe that the internet is not good at all.
Technology in the last few decades has revolutionized the way life continues on a day to day basis. Computers have gotten smaller and it is now possible to have one that fits into one’s palm and back pockets with ease. It has never been easier to use technology to do a plethora of things, such as socializing, shopping, doing schoolwork, or even applying for a job. Yet, the very technology that helps enhance everyday human life can also be extremely detrimental to society and one’s private lives. This topic is seen throughout the book The Circle by Dave Eggers, as it is one of the book’s central themes. The main character, Mae Holland, believes that all people show complete and total transparency, however this thought is very dangerous. All
The Private Eye explores society's views on technology by contradicting what the reader may expect with its portrayal of a society that is strongly opposed to, and fears, current world views and attitudes towards technology. Fear drove the people of The Private Eye in a whole new direction technologically with it’s use of masks and other appearance changing devices and, while it would be easy to say this is true because it’s practical in their world, there’s more to it in a way that mirrors today’s thoughts on technology and its potentials. The people of the story gravitate towards what they know and, while accepting some new technologies like futuristic masks, reject anything that breaks the rules of what they think is human.
Technology in our society is way to advanced for some people. We fail to realize the complications that could possibly join these new inventions. We don’t see how these products could be ways for others to listen in without warning, and we buy these things accepting the terms and conditions without seeing if it’s actually completely safe. We shouldn’t feel safe however knowing several of our information that we wouldn’t want to be public; could be at any chosen moment. We allow several corporations and governments receive information about us they would/should have no interest in, we embrace and advance our technology and by doing this we sacrifice our privacy everyday.