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If everyone is identifiable all the time then you have a totalitarian state. Free speech is the first thing that flys out the window. And what about whistle bl
by Towaway69 3y ago
If everyone is identifiable all the time then you have a totalitarian state. Free speech is the first thing that flys out the window.
And what about whistle blowers or rape victims - should they be identifiable to those they accuse?
Edit:
What about walking along the street, I bump into someone and say sorry. Should I be identifiable to the other person? If not, Where's the limit/cut-off for identifiable? If yes, what is the difference to Chinese social scoring where literal everyone is identifiable?
- MrDrDr 3y agoI agree - but I also think the opposite does not make a good society - a society where everyone can act with anonymity. I was quite impressed with Matt Ridley's book 'The Origins of Virtue' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Virtue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Virtue) it makes the argument that we evolved the capacity for altruism from the evolutionary benefits of reciprocity. IMO there is a marked difference between city culture - where the chances of meeting a random person in the street again is virtually zero, and village/rural culture where if you don't know the person you bump into you are almost certainly going to be separated by a single degree. The former culture being less 'polite' that the latter. My point is that, while we should have the freedom to speak, we should expect our speech to have some social consequences that should at least cause us to pause and consider those consequences. And I accept that there should be a balance here. I would not want to live in a society that banned anonymous social media accounts, but I do think it would be an interesting experiment to have a civic social space where everyone was identifiable.