This Luddite still cares about privacy

Apparently, privacy is not only really, really dead, but anyone who cares about that fact, or thinks there's any point in guarding any last spark of life remaining, is out of step with the rest of humanity, and in fact, a complete Luddite.

Move over, fellow Luddites, here I come. Count me as one of the I am not We Tribe.

From where I sit tending my little fire, it appears the Privacy Is Dead advocates largely fall into two groups:

Those who don’t care about others privacy because they stand to make a pile of money off it;

Those who don’t care about their own privacy because they’ve already sold it.

That much of our privacy is already long gone isn’t even a relevant argument. All we’ve really done is complete yet another circle and come back to the lack of privacy people took for granted when everyone DID still live in caves.

Eventually, though, some people probably started picking out their own corner of the cave so they could get a *little* privacy. I don’t know if they got whacked with a mammoth bone by one of the cave Social Leaders and told “Don’t bother trying that, your privacy’s already so much sabertooth scat.”, but if they did and they didn’t like it, they had the option of going out and finding a cave of their own. If they turned around and invited a whole bunch of other people to join them, well, that was their choice.

What the Privacy Is Dead theory tries to convince us is that we don’t have that option anymore, and with that I disagree. I’d go even further and say it seems some (marketers) are determined to pound home (with or without mammoth bones) the notion that we don’t even have the right to TRY to have that option, and with that I REALLY disagree.

I’m not going to give up fighting for my own corner of the cave. If I have to go find another cave and start over, so be it. If I do, you’d better believe I want control over who – if anyone – I decide to invite to join me.  Maybe I'll just visit with a few like-minded neighbors from the caves next door.

I’m not worried about keeping out the sabertooths, either. I’m pretty handy with those mammoth bones. :-P