April 19, 2011 • 32 mins
Are computers approaching singularity? Join Robert and Julie as they discuss the quest for cyberimmortality.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
today we're gonna devote some time to a question we'll
see from a listener by the name of Oscar. That's right. Yeah,
we can't see his last name for privacy reasons, which
(00:26):
which is interesting because this whole podcast is going to
be about the idea of privacy. What is it? Does
it exist? Is it an illusion? Is it dead? Uh?
You know all the various Do we care too much
about privacy? Yeah? Yeah, Um And yet Oscar, a longtime listener,
brought this up, and he sent us a really very
thought provoking long email about this. So we won't read
the entire email, but just to kind of get this
(00:48):
conversation kick started. Um and for a context, we'll just
read a little bit. Um. His email says, I just
listened to the Eat Popcorn podcast and I was glad
of how it moved from the subliminal messaging to the
private see issue. Um. In the podcast, July expresses concern
of how she feels that she is giving away too
much of her personal information to vendors and in general,
(01:08):
to the world out there. That makes me ask, why
are people so paranoid about sharing information? I understand that
in the past, the security and responsibility of your information
lied with the individuals. If I moved across the scene
upon arrival said my name was John Doe, they would
have no choice, no other choice than to believe that
I was John Doe and start gathering information from there.
But and this is a big butt, I mean font
(01:30):
size one plus, we are living in this so called
era of information. Information is not only power, it is
becoming part of the basic structure of our civilization. I'll
admit that as a civilization we are still learning how
to deal with it, how to process it, how to
use this new power we just got. But that is
the whole point. We need to admit to the fact
(01:50):
that we need training in the upgrade, if you will.
I love the point about crossing an ocean and changing
your name, because I that's one thing that instantly comes
to mind with all these more or we're we're you know,
logged into these different accounts, and we have all these
you know, we have identification numbers, and the government knows
where we are and the state government knows where we
are that you can't just you know, do pull a
(02:11):
Don Draper and just back up somewhere else and to
clear yourself a new person, which is which is an
attractive idea. Everybody loves the idea of being able to
start over, to be able, the idea of just getting
in your vehicle and like just driving and just wherever
it takes you, you're gonna wind up. Well, think about
our ancestors to um many of nsistors here in the
United States have that experience. I mean, I can I
can tell you two different relatives that change their name
(02:34):
upon arrival to the United States, um, you know, for
political um reasons, so on and so forth. So yeah,
I mean we don't have that. I guess you could
call it a lecture, even though that this were pretty
hard times and people are escaping very um horrible circumstances
in order to to attain a new identity. Yeah, because
(02:56):
I mean we're we're broadcasting from Georgia, where you know,
all the really you know, hardcore Georgians you know, descended
from people who came over in the sex criminal boats.
So and I know we have Australian listeners out there.
You know, it's it's like I imagine it's the same
thing there. There's there's this sense of going to a
new any kind of frontier colony environment. You know, people
went there and they might have had kind of a
(03:18):
crappy past, but they were able to start over and
then if they screwed up again, they just needed to
move further out into the wilds. And uh and just
as many start doovers as you need till you get
it right right, they didn't have all this looming information
out there, but what they just eight or what they
just spent money on or uh, yeah, they're they're criminal
records essentially. Um. So it made me, I think, it's
(03:40):
just a very intriguing question. Made me think, is it
really just an illusion, this privacy? Um? And is it
a is it some sort of remnant of our past,
particularly Americans, this idea of rugged individualism that just doesn't
exist anymore. Because it's worth noting that the word privacy
is uh. Some linguists consider it untranslatable into various tongues. Um.
(04:05):
Many languages lack a specific word for it. Uh. And
and you end up with complex descriptions like I believe
in Russian Uh. It ends up meaning something about like
basically solitude. Um. And the the original our word, our
English word privacy comes from the Latin privatus. Does that
sound right? That sounds good? Separated from means, separated from
(04:27):
the rest, deprived of something um and uh and often
ends up having a legal or governmental use right. And
and when we live in communities, we always know that
there's some sort of trade off for living in a
community and being supported in a community, right, Like you're
not just no, no man is an island unto himself,
and if he is, he might be the UNI bomber,
(04:49):
right well, yeah, and it it goes in, it spills
over into the whole issue of like libel suits and slander.
You know, who can be slandered, who can be liabel?
Like different different laws, different rules apply. Uh, you know,
if you're a private citizen or if you're a public servant,
or if you're a you know, I you know, I'm
a top tier celebrity. So um, it varies greatly depending
(05:12):
on who you are and how how out there you
are in the world. Yeah, and I wanted to read
just a little bit more to um concerning this illusion
of privacy. He talks about a worldwide civilization when the
borders are gone, which I think is very interesting, right,
because so much of our lives are being played out online.
So more on that. On another email, he says, but uh,
(05:33):
in your everyday life, you're the car you drive, the
gadgets you use, the clothes you wear, the way that
you dress your kids, what you do for a living,
even the way that you walk, the way you comb
your hair. They all give away the story of who
you are. But that's fine. It is the way that
information is supposed to be free. Information is valuable, but
it's not a physical thing. It baffles me why people
(05:53):
want to treat it as if it was building vaults
for it, restricting access to it, when the fact is
that the more information those, the easier it is to
keep it safe. Well, one could make that argument, yeah, yeah, um,
and he does. He goes onto the argument and talk
talking about the sort of transparency in society. I mean
even surveillance, right, um, cameras that if if we know
(06:17):
that we're being taped, if we know we're being looked at,
that we're not necessarily going to do things, um, outside
of the law. So again, interesting interesting fodder here because
I understand what he's saying. There's so much of ourselves
that we're already revealing. Um. And yet and yet it
feels like for me personally that if it's being used
(06:40):
for consumption purposes, for for businesses, that it doesn't feel
like uh maybe part of the bargain that that I
was hoping for. I can't help but think of like
old you know, the old Biblical and uh, you know
accounts of say like Adam and Eve where it's like
they live in this perfect society when they're naked, and
then when you introduce uh, you know, sin and all,
(07:03):
they suddenly they have to cover up, they have to
use leaves, they have to It's like the birth of
privacy and uh. And so there's this I can definitely
understand the idea of you know, if there are no
you know, if everybody's naked in you know, an informational sense,
then there wouldn't be any issues, you know, because what
are you gonna what are you gonna hide? Right? How
are someone going to use it against you? You know,
(07:23):
you can't be blackmailed, right. That's the like any movie
about blackmail, it's like that's always seems to be one
of the options on the table. It's like, well, I'm
just gonna come clean about this political scandal before someone
can blackmail me or you know, and it robs the
blackmailer of their power. Well and even wiki leaks right right, um,
which has its been pretty illuminating information. Um. And and
(07:44):
so many people would argue with that this is necessary, right.
A lot of people do make that argument. Yeah, um
so and I just to to bring up the naked
analogy too. I was sort of thinking myself, well, why
do I have a problem with with privacy or what
I perceive of is the lack of privacy right in
our technological days. Um, because I don't have anything to
(08:04):
have to have a I'll lead a pretty mundane life.
But I think it's still that's exactly what a person
with a dark history would say on a podcast. Sure
they would, Yeah, I'm just talking about my name is
Julie Douglas, okay, um. But you know, it is that
idea again and and and so for me, it's this
question of is it just like this antiquated American idea
(08:27):
of individualism that you know that is melting away. As
Oscar talks about civilization, a worldwide one where the borders
are gone, right, well, I mean then there there are
also plenty of issues like like like how far do
you take privacy? It's like, uh, you know, there's that
old adage, which is thankfully disappearing in the United States,
(08:50):
But the whole, the whole thing of like, well, what
a person does in the privacy their their own bedroom
is their business, and generally that brings with it the
assumption that that that whatever is going on doesn't need
to be known, and that if it were known there
might be uh some sort of repercussions for it, you know. So, um,
I guess like the mystery has gone. Yeah. But but
(09:11):
it's also it's like the idea that privacy like Oscar's
argument that the more the less privacy there is and
the more the information is free flowing, the safer we are.
But clearly history and even in modern times, there are
plenty of situations where privacy saves human lives and makes
human lives safe in uh, in societies or under governments
(09:34):
that are less tolerant or it is completely intolerant of
different ways of life, different political ideologies. Um, you know,
it becomes necessary for us to hide from one another
because sometimes the eyes that are looking you know, are
are powered by nefarious brains. Okay, So that is I
think a really interesting point and a good way to
(09:55):
talk about the Patriot Act. Right. We sort of debated
about whether or not we talk about it at the
end of the today, this is a really good example
of of why privacy matters. Um, and just for everybody. UM,
just a little reminder about the Patriot Act that you know,
after none eleven, it brought sweeping changes to the way
the government accesses and utilizes information about private citizens. Um.
(10:18):
It's been criticized as undermining civil liberties, particularly parts of
the counter surveillance law. Right. How easy it is to
get wire taps in this sort of thing. Yeah, yeah,
and you know you don't have to get a quarter
or um. FBI can also search telephone, email and financial
records without a court order. Um. And the problem here
is that it can those that that sort of wide
(10:39):
latitude can be used outside of the context in which
it was originally meant for. Right. I mean it supposed
to be to go after terrorists, but um, and then
you know you do have FBI saying up until two
thousand and five, no, it's never been abused Okay, So
now you have other reports that have surfaced, um from
(10:59):
this is from first Amint Mint Center dot org, New
York Times, and Business Week. They all reported on this
that it's that actually the Patriot Act has been used
outside of its original context to remove homeless people from
trained stations, to pursue drug rings, and to collect financial
data on random visitors to Las Vegas. Yeah, so that
is random there. Um, so you know already and you know, um,
(11:22):
have a human mind works and historically how we have
behaved and when you have that sort of what I
think in this case is is an unbalanced here right
of power, but it can be used very readily against people.
And as you say, if you know, thankfully we live
in the United States, and at least we we think
that we live in a society in which our privacy
(11:43):
and our individual rights are respected. But you know, still
there's gray area there, and certainly there are other countries
in which people are not treated as fairly right. And
you know, like the period of McCarthyism wasn't that long
ago when digging around to find the evidence of communism
and people's past and people becoming blacklisted, Yeah, and um,
(12:08):
and at risk of sounding like you know, some sort
of a radical. It's it's any time a government is
given power, any time people hand over power to a government. Uh,
generally it's a little naive to expect the government and
to hand that power back over when they're done with
one particular gold or another, especially if that goal is
something say like defeating terrorism or you know, or or
(12:31):
winning the war on drugs or something that is it's
largely unattainable anyway. Yeah, and so you know, you got
that's the things that we need to consider when looking
at privacy. UM. And I do like Oscar's idea that
it's it's beneficial, you know that there's we are going
to obey the better angels of our nature and use
(12:52):
it the right ways. Um. I do think there's that possibility.
But we have already seen as a as I talked about,
that it's been used outside of its contact at least
the Patriot Act has. And uh, we will never know
the far ranging effects of the Patriot Act until much later.
A lot of that is because even the reports have
been filed, much of it has been redacted, so you
(13:13):
can if you're if you go to look at that report,
you might be able to see that the subject was
a female or a male, but pretty much everything else
is going to be blacked out. So it's hard to
say when you have a government that's not being fully
transparent itself. And of course they will say, you know,
we need to do that for security reasons, and you
know there's an angle there that that is relevant. Um.
But I think what is interesting to me about the
(13:34):
Patriot Act and uh, where we as a society sort
of came into our technological Uh I don't know, what
would you say, like our maturity maybe. Um, these things
seem to have dovetailed at the same time. Right, So
after None eleven, Uh, you have the Patriot Act, and
you also have people using the Internet and unprecedented numbers
(13:56):
and sharing information, our personal lives flowing onto it. Um.
Like I mean, I remember when I first got on
my Space. Um, you young listeners may not remember my Space,
but but it existed and I think still does. If
you're a band or something, you can still visit it. Yeah. Uh,
but but I remember it felt like this frontier where
it was like it was just a whole bunch of
(14:17):
young people who wanted to hang out or date each other,
you know, So you didn't really think about, well, you know,
who all this information you're putting out there, and and
then uh, and then later you realize, wow, that was
really stupid of me, you know, like the like the
we we we just talked in another podcast, The Cyber
Immortality about how we're different people. The person I was
(14:37):
a year ago as and who I am now. The
person a year from now isn't who I am now.
Certainly you're my Space person isn't definitely not the same
person or now. Yeah, and so it's you know, it's
like the MySpace you from ten years ago wasn't concerned
with how about getting a job somewhere necessarily or or
you know, or or or what his or her you know,
political opinions or social opinions at the time, we're compared
(15:01):
to what they might be at, you know, a decade later.
So um so so so it's interesting to see how
that's changed. Like I feel like a lot of us
are like that, where the Internet, what the Internet is,
has has changed in that time, and then who we
are has has changed. But to a certain extent, a
lot of the data we put out there, they say,
it's like putting information in the in on the Internet
(15:23):
is like putting p in a swimming pool. There's no
not really a good way to get it out again.
You can delete anything. This presensation is brought to you
by Intel sponsors of tomorrow. Well, and what I was
(15:44):
thinking too, is because of the Patriot devetailing with our
increased involvement with the Internet, is is it on a
subconscious level? Of course, we don't have any scientific data
to back this up, but so this is just a question.
But is it on some levels? Was that sort of
when we lost our privacy virginity? You know, like we
had a lot of us were very fearful at the time,
(16:05):
and um, certainly we know that the government was able
to pass the Act because of that. Um there was
a juggernaut of emotion. Yeah, following not eleven um and so,
and we all know that we act irrationally, and when
we're controlled by fear of our brain makes different decisions.
So once we sort of handed over the reins that way,
(16:26):
at least symbolically, if not everybody was affected by the
Patriot Act, did we then sort of say okay, and
then we're on this thing called the Internet and we're
exchanging all of this information and it's really neat, you know.
It's it's it's okay for me because I feel like
I'm getting something in return. I'm getting this instant gratification. Yeah,
it's like it's so it's like the you know, the
(16:48):
the revelation that, oh, the government's off in my business.
You know, you get used to that idea and then uh,
you know, it comes along the phone companies like, hey,
we want to know where you are at all times,
and You're like, all right, I mean the phone's pretty cool.
I can play a scrapple on it and and used
the map system to figure out where I am in Austin, Texas,
because I don't know if we would have made it
(17:08):
to the live recording. You. No, we wouldn't have made
it to the coffee shop and back had it not. Yeah,
we literally took out your iPhone and we're following the
dot as we were. Yeah, so maybe I you know,
I take that as the comforting bribe, but I'm giving
up something in the process. Well it's interesting to you
that that you're talking about the iPhone because there, um
there's a German Green Party politician his name is mult
(17:30):
Disputes and he went to court to find out what
his cell phone company, Deutsche Telecom, knew about his comings
and goings, because he was just sort of interested about
what sort of information they were amassing. He found out
that in a six month period from August thirty one,
two thousand and nine to February eight, two thousand and ten,
Deutsch Telecom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude
(17:52):
coordinates more than thirty five thousand times UM. It traced
him from a train on the way to turn Langan
at the start of the day and then through the
following night when he was back home in Berlin. So
oftentimes this will happen. They'll they'll take the coordinates just
because they're the signal is sort of being rebooted. But
when they looked at this case that that wasn't it.
(18:13):
It was just randomly sort of tracking his coordinates um,
which begs the question, what do they want with all
that data? You know? What was Obviously they can say, well,
maybe he went here and there, and we can give
this to marketing firms and better pinpoint his interests and
translates to bigger dollars. That's a possibility, but it's it's
(18:36):
still sort of interesting how and all the legalis that
we sign off on with our contracts for cell phones
or even you know, for downloading application. There there's um
what we're sort of giving away that right to our
privacy when it comes to that, Yeah, that giant wall
of text that comes with any uh system contract or
device contracting. I mean who reads that? I think I
(18:59):
heard one, like one NPR story about a guy who
read or maybe as a woman who read the contract.
But it's because if for a living they write those contracts,
but the normal people actually you know, leaf through. Does
it seems like you reach a fatigue point about one paragraph? Well,
I mean that's that's the whole point of legal ease,
I think, right, is to to fatigue you to the
(19:20):
point you're like, oh fine, I'll just just sign off
by paragraph six. It's talking about like the river of
the soul and and uh and bounding the spirit to
opjects and things like that, right yeah, And you're like,
I kept rivers so I just want this application. Um. So,
I mean it comes down to that sort of idea
of who does own our identity? Then? Um, and particularly
(19:42):
is we begin to store more and more data about
ourselves cloud computing and otherwise, Uh, you know, how is
that going to be played out in twenty years or
you know, we forever going to be tethered to a
company that owns our online uh projection of ourselves? Yeah,
because I mean typically these companies have to sort of
play pr our niceties when when talking about this about
(20:02):
who owns the information or they kind of skirt around
the issue. But in the end, like take something like Flicker.
You know, you put a lot of your life onto
a Flicker account. Uh. I mean to the point where
like if you if you own a Flicker account and
you were to die, like the Flicker account would kind
of be an online um memorial too, you know only
need you might want that to live on, or you
(20:24):
might want that to live on for someone that you
you knew, and uh you know who owns that? Who
owns your your profile with all your your your thoughts
or bails and correspondences. And if you are deceased, do
you uh any longer have rights to those photos? Can
they be used by someone else? Yeah? Yeah, Um, so
sort of brings up some good questions about that. I
wanted to talk a little bit too about when you're
(20:45):
talking about my space and and you know who who
you were then, who you are now, and these different
iterations of yourself that exist. Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts
that every young person one day will be entitled automatically
to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in
order to disown youthful hijiink stored on their friends and
(21:05):
social media sites. Uh so here you go. I mean this,
this idea that you know, companies might sprout up to
actually whitewash your identity is very possible. It has been
talked about in the industry. Yeah, it's kind of kind
of like this idea that just like, all right, the
thirty year old me needs to get this new job.
I need to hire somebody to kill the twenty year
(21:28):
old me. We're still out there on the Internet looking
like a total goof is well, and think about the
fifteen year old today. Think about the sort of information
the fifteen year old has, and assume that the fifteen
year old is very open with with whatever information going
to share, because that's the thing for a lot of us,
Like you said, I was talking about when suddenly the
internet was here and like for a for a for
(21:49):
a large number obviously, when we remember that time. We
didn't grow up with the Internet. It just came into
our lives like this mysterious piper with a bunch of
rats following him, you know. And uh and we followed him,
uh and uh and it's been a weird experience ever since.
But other people have have been born and grown up
um in the Piper's under the Piper's spell. So so
(22:11):
they have a totally different idea of what privacy is
and what it should be. Yeah, and and that makes
me think about Sherry Turkle, who has written a lot
about technology and our relationship to it. And she makes
that point. She says, just because we grew up in
the Internet does not mean that it is growing up,
does not mean that it it is fully formed now. Um.
And it's still the wild West in many ways, in
(22:32):
terms of legalities, uh and in even sort of the
way that we interacted psychologically. But again, this fifteen year old,
I mean five years from now, what might we know
about her? You know? I mean think about all the
different ways that we can collect data on or we
google Earth, we can see where she lives. Um, we
know her Facebook status, UM, Twitter, four Square, her blog, missives,
(22:57):
we have access to her thoughts you know, possibly uh,
you know, maybe what she just purchased and where her
coordinates her I Q her sa T scores her grades
for does she have a criminal record? I don't know
her medical record? Which X man she would be according to?
Right right right? And think about that. I mean that
is this a lot of layer of detail? Um? And
(23:20):
you know, would what kind of control would she have
in five years over that or in like, you know,
thirty years from now she's running for public office and
someone's like she was on Team Edward back in the
Twilight Days. Do you want to vote for somebody who's
on Team Edward? Right? I know, because that is how
fickle us human beings are, right, we might look at
that and go, oh god, no, totally not Team Edward. Um.
(23:42):
So that kind of makes me think about the future
of data mining, especially for for younger generations who have
been accused of over sharing. Um. And again to go
back to Google CEO Eric Schmidt Um. This is from
an article Google and the Search for the Future from
the Wall Street Journal. He says, I actually think most
people don't want Google to answer their questions. He elaborates,
(24:04):
they want Google to tell them what they should be
doing next, And then he gives a scenario. Let's say
you're walking down the street walking here we are because
of the info Google has collected about you, we know
roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, who
your friends are. Google also knows, too, within a foot
where you are. And uh. Mr Schmidt then leaves it
(24:27):
to a listener to imagine the possibilities. If you need
milk and there's a place nearby to get milk, Google
will will remind you to get milk. Google knows you
need milk before you know that you need milk from
your list right. Um, it will tell you a store
ahead has a collection of horse racing posters that you like. Uh,
that the nineteenth century murder that you've been reading about
took place on the next block. So uh, are these
(24:49):
the things that really come up for you? Like? No,
I mean, I know you have Jack the Ripper fascinations. No,
this is just in Mr Schmidt's this this scenario, I
thought it was from the article. No, no, no, no,
I don't have any more spacing poster fetish Um. But
Mr Schmidt says that a generation of powerful handheld devices
(25:10):
is just around the corner that can fulfill this need,
and they can be adept at surprising you with information
that you didn't even know that you wanted. So this
is the point where maybe you cease to actually think
about things and are told or suggested about what to do.
So Google comes in. Basically they say, not only was
free will an illusion before, we're gonna go ahead and
completely dispel it and uh and just take over all
(25:32):
your decision making free will and privacy our illusion. Sorry
about that, but hey, here's you need some bread, so
you might as well pick that up with your milk. Yeah, so,
I mean it does. It's we still can't answer the
question is is it a fair trade off what we're
doing right now, the information that we're sharing. Um, but
it does make me wonder if we're sort of opening
(25:54):
our digital veins a bit too much and letting an
information flow. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how privacy
evolved of their changes, uh in the years ahead. I mean,
maybe it reaches the point where we just we had
we end up having to have a different view of it.
From a very early age, you know, where your mom
takes you aside and says, all right, this is the
kind of stuff you blog about or whatever it is
by that point and this is the kind of stuff
(26:15):
that is that is completely private. Maybe that becomes this
just more of an emphasis on the separation. I don't know,
And I mean we've already absorbed much of this mindset anyway, right,
so it maybe it's not too big of a deal. Um.
Maybe we aren't necessarily eroding our civil liberties or our privacy. Um.
But again, I think the Oscar brings up a really
(26:37):
good point about that, and especially the point about how
since we're in the middle of this, we we actually
need to look at it um and know that it's
not actually fully formed and think about it. So thank you, Oscar. Yeah. Well, hey,
I have us an email from another couple of individuals
whose last names will be with health for privacy reasons.
First we have one from Mark Anthony and Mark Anthony.
(27:00):
How is it y'all? Uh? They wrote it wrote out
y'all alright, like the podcast lots of food for thought.
Just like to comment on your podcast about audio hallucinations.
I used to live in Alaska after my parents dragged
me up there as a child. I would chop wood
and watch the Aurora borealis in the extremely long winters
and that super quiet environment. Laying back in the snow,
I would I would hear music often as I gazed
(27:22):
up at the sky. I've heard that this is a
common occurrence among people who have seen the Aurora. Can
you set some light on this or did I just
have a bad case of cabin fever? Oh? The music
was always some symphonic classical stuff, which I enjoy. But
I listened to metal uh at the time, a lot
of thrash strange, So that's interesting. Well, I kind of wondered, too,
(27:44):
is that during a period of twenty four hour daylight
in Alaska? Because everything I ever learned about Alaska is
from al Pacino in the movie in which he went
nuts or someone went nuts? Because there is that? What
it is I saw me it's a remake of of
a European film, which is, in my opinion, are superior.
The original starts stolen scarce guard and has a lot
more shades of gray in terms of the characters. Don't
(28:05):
even get me started on the fem Nikita and then
the astradization of that and in the American version. But yes,
so I don't know that that's the question I have.
You know, what were the what were the other circumstances
surrounding that, But I do think it's very interesting. But well,
I have seen the Aurora bore alice, if I remember.
I'm told I've seen the Aurora boor alice as the
thing because I was a child in Newfoundland and uh
(28:29):
and I think it was when my mom was in
the hospital to give birth to my youngest sibling. Um,
some friends of theirs like took us out and supposedly
show the siger roar about bore alice. But the only
thing I remember is reading a dinosaur booklet in which
one dinosaur like is this rated? Another one? So that
is that sounds like you probably as a small child.
But yeah, I totally missed out on this, or totally
(28:51):
it didn't make an impression on me, which you were
like dinosaurs evisceration high pretty lights you pale in comparison. Well,
maybe maybe a listener will out there will will share
their similar experiences or or just you know, get a
straight on the whole Aurora borealis and use it thing. Um.
I have another one here from j J j J says, Hi,
(29:13):
I'm listening to the Does Your Dog Love You? Podcast?
I was wondering why it is that we like to
watch dogs and other animals play so much. For that matter,
why do human beings will love to have fun or
other animals? I see my dog playing all the time,
and she never seems happier. She even seems to be
using some type of imagination while doing it. Where does
fun come from? From a strictly evolutionary standpoint, fund should
(29:35):
serve some kind of function to pass on one's genes.
In that sense, it's hard to imagine fun being beneficial
for us because I don't see where it accomplishes this.
What do you think? Maybe this would be a good podcast?
Keep up the great work. Pretty cool. Yeah, well that's
some interesting food for thought. We may have to explore
that later. I know that. You know, as we discussed
in that particular podcast, Um, it's fun to watch our
(29:58):
dogs play because we have that connection with them, and
it actually releases um oxytocin in the brain's right and
so we get this feel good mother infant uh drug
coursing through our brain when we're interacting with this dog
that we find adorable because it kind of sort of
looks like an infant. Well, also, I was thinking too
about little kids and when they play and they have
(30:21):
you know, fun I guess and air quotes. But um,
you know a lot of people have said that that's
the way that they're working out their own creativity and
also working out there's their social roles. So we have
that whole podcast on creativity. Yeah. I just think about
that too. So it's it's maybe another way to come
at problems, we know through play. Yeah, well, it intantly
comes to mind little boys playing um you know, sword
(30:42):
fights and whatever on the playground. They're they're kind of
learning to fight in the same way that a kitten
wrestles with things, because it's kind of learning to kill
small animals. Yeah. Yeah, I actually remember getting that. I
mean my brother and I were no, no, no, no no, no,
no play play fight. It's like an episode of Dexter childhood.
(31:04):
Um well cool, cool, that's that's some some awesome food
for out there. And if you haven't listened to that
episode and or a dog owner to check it out
and give us your feedback. And if you have some
feedback on this particular episode, um, and and and and
oh by the way, if you happen to be um
Georgian or Australian I don't mean any offense about the
whole sex criminal boat thing, but yeah, no, he's a
(31:26):
segment with the way back, way way back, and we
all have a touch of that note. I'll like debtors,
colonies and so on and sap. But yeah, if you
have any any cool feedback on the whole privacy thing,
let us know. I'd love to I'd love to hear
even just some amusing anecdotes about how your previous online
self has interfered or in some way affected your current
(31:47):
online self. Um. You can find us on Twitter and
Facebook is blow the Mind, and you can also drop
us a note at blew the Mind, at how stuff
worst dot com and more on this and thousands of
other topics. Visit how stuff works dot com. To learn
more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in
the upper right corner of our homepage. The how Stuff
(32:10):
Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it today on
iTunes
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
today we're gonna devote some time to a question we'll
see from a listener by the name of Oscar. That's right. Yeah,
we can't see his last name for privacy reasons, which
(00:26):
which is interesting because this whole podcast is going to
be about the idea of privacy. What is it? Does
it exist? Is it an illusion? Is it dead? Uh?
You know all the various Do we care too much
about privacy? Yeah? Yeah, Um And yet Oscar, a longtime listener,
brought this up, and he sent us a really very
thought provoking long email about this. So we won't read
the entire email, but just to kind of get this
(00:48):
conversation kick started. Um and for a context, we'll just
read a little bit. Um. His email says, I just
listened to the Eat Popcorn podcast and I was glad
of how it moved from the subliminal messaging to the
private see issue. Um. In the podcast, July expresses concern
of how she feels that she is giving away too
much of her personal information to vendors and in general,
(01:08):
to the world out there. That makes me ask, why
are people so paranoid about sharing information? I understand that
in the past, the security and responsibility of your information
lied with the individuals. If I moved across the scene
upon arrival said my name was John Doe, they would
have no choice, no other choice than to believe that
I was John Doe and start gathering information from there.
But and this is a big butt, I mean font
(01:30):
size one plus, we are living in this so called
era of information. Information is not only power, it is
becoming part of the basic structure of our civilization. I'll
admit that as a civilization we are still learning how
to deal with it, how to process it, how to
use this new power we just got. But that is
the whole point. We need to admit to the fact
(01:50):
that we need training in the upgrade, if you will.
I love the point about crossing an ocean and changing
your name, because I that's one thing that instantly comes
to mind with all these more or we're we're you know,
logged into these different accounts, and we have all these
you know, we have identification numbers, and the government knows
where we are and the state government knows where we
are that you can't just you know, do pull a
(02:11):
Don Draper and just back up somewhere else and to
clear yourself a new person, which is which is an
attractive idea. Everybody loves the idea of being able to
start over, to be able, the idea of just getting
in your vehicle and like just driving and just wherever
it takes you, you're gonna wind up. Well, think about
our ancestors to um many of nsistors here in the
United States have that experience. I mean, I can I
can tell you two different relatives that change their name
(02:34):
upon arrival to the United States, um, you know, for
political um reasons, so on and so forth. So yeah,
I mean we don't have that. I guess you could
call it a lecture, even though that this were pretty
hard times and people are escaping very um horrible circumstances
in order to to attain a new identity. Yeah, because
(02:56):
I mean we're we're broadcasting from Georgia, where you know,
all the really you know, hardcore Georgians you know, descended
from people who came over in the sex criminal boats.
So and I know we have Australian listeners out there.
You know, it's it's like I imagine it's the same
thing there. There's there's this sense of going to a
new any kind of frontier colony environment. You know, people
went there and they might have had kind of a
(03:18):
crappy past, but they were able to start over and
then if they screwed up again, they just needed to
move further out into the wilds. And uh and just
as many start doovers as you need till you get
it right right, they didn't have all this looming information
out there, but what they just eight or what they
just spent money on or uh, yeah, they're they're criminal
records essentially. Um. So it made me, I think, it's
(03:40):
just a very intriguing question. Made me think, is it
really just an illusion, this privacy? Um? And is it
a is it some sort of remnant of our past,
particularly Americans, this idea of rugged individualism that just doesn't
exist anymore. Because it's worth noting that the word privacy
is uh. Some linguists consider it untranslatable into various tongues. Um.
(04:05):
Many languages lack a specific word for it. Uh. And
and you end up with complex descriptions like I believe
in Russian Uh. It ends up meaning something about like
basically solitude. Um. And the the original our word, our
English word privacy comes from the Latin privatus. Does that
sound right? That sounds good? Separated from means, separated from
(04:27):
the rest, deprived of something um and uh and often
ends up having a legal or governmental use right. And
and when we live in communities, we always know that
there's some sort of trade off for living in a
community and being supported in a community, right, Like you're
not just no, no man is an island unto himself,
and if he is, he might be the UNI bomber,
(04:49):
right well, yeah, and it it goes in, it spills
over into the whole issue of like libel suits and slander.
You know, who can be slandered, who can be liabel?
Like different different laws, different rules apply. Uh, you know,
if you're a private citizen or if you're a public servant,
or if you're a you know, I you know, I'm
a top tier celebrity. So um, it varies greatly depending
(05:12):
on who you are and how how out there you
are in the world. Yeah, and I wanted to read
just a little bit more to um concerning this illusion
of privacy. He talks about a worldwide civilization when the
borders are gone, which I think is very interesting, right,
because so much of our lives are being played out online.
So more on that. On another email, he says, but uh,
(05:33):
in your everyday life, you're the car you drive, the
gadgets you use, the clothes you wear, the way that
you dress your kids, what you do for a living,
even the way that you walk, the way you comb
your hair. They all give away the story of who
you are. But that's fine. It is the way that
information is supposed to be free. Information is valuable, but
it's not a physical thing. It baffles me why people
(05:53):
want to treat it as if it was building vaults
for it, restricting access to it, when the fact is
that the more information those, the easier it is to
keep it safe. Well, one could make that argument, yeah, yeah, um,
and he does. He goes onto the argument and talk
talking about the sort of transparency in society. I mean
even surveillance, right, um, cameras that if if we know
(06:17):
that we're being taped, if we know we're being looked at,
that we're not necessarily going to do things, um, outside
of the law. So again, interesting interesting fodder here because
I understand what he's saying. There's so much of ourselves
that we're already revealing. Um. And yet and yet it
feels like for me personally that if it's being used
(06:40):
for consumption purposes, for for businesses, that it doesn't feel
like uh maybe part of the bargain that that I
was hoping for. I can't help but think of like
old you know, the old Biblical and uh, you know
accounts of say like Adam and Eve where it's like
they live in this perfect society when they're naked, and
then when you introduce uh, you know, sin and all,
(07:03):
they suddenly they have to cover up, they have to
use leaves, they have to It's like the birth of
privacy and uh. And so there's this I can definitely
understand the idea of you know, if there are no
you know, if everybody's naked in you know, an informational sense,
then there wouldn't be any issues, you know, because what
are you gonna what are you gonna hide? Right? How
are someone going to use it against you? You know,
(07:23):
you can't be blackmailed, right. That's the like any movie
about blackmail, it's like that's always seems to be one
of the options on the table. It's like, well, I'm
just gonna come clean about this political scandal before someone
can blackmail me or you know, and it robs the
blackmailer of their power. Well and even wiki leaks right right, um,
which has its been pretty illuminating information. Um. And and
(07:44):
so many people would argue with that this is necessary, right.
A lot of people do make that argument. Yeah, um
so and I just to to bring up the naked
analogy too. I was sort of thinking myself, well, why
do I have a problem with with privacy or what
I perceive of is the lack of privacy right in
our technological days. Um, because I don't have anything to
(08:04):
have to have a I'll lead a pretty mundane life.
But I think it's still that's exactly what a person
with a dark history would say on a podcast. Sure
they would, Yeah, I'm just talking about my name is
Julie Douglas, okay, um. But you know, it is that
idea again and and and so for me, it's this
question of is it just like this antiquated American idea
(08:27):
of individualism that you know that is melting away. As
Oscar talks about civilization, a worldwide one where the borders
are gone, right, well, I mean then there there are
also plenty of issues like like like how far do
you take privacy? It's like, uh, you know, there's that
old adage, which is thankfully disappearing in the United States,
(08:50):
But the whole, the whole thing of like, well, what
a person does in the privacy their their own bedroom
is their business, and generally that brings with it the
assumption that that that whatever is going on doesn't need
to be known, and that if it were known there
might be uh some sort of repercussions for it, you know. So, um,
I guess like the mystery has gone. Yeah. But but
(09:11):
it's also it's like the idea that privacy like Oscar's
argument that the more the less privacy there is and
the more the information is free flowing, the safer we are.
But clearly history and even in modern times, there are
plenty of situations where privacy saves human lives and makes
human lives safe in uh, in societies or under governments
(09:34):
that are less tolerant or it is completely intolerant of
different ways of life, different political ideologies. Um, you know,
it becomes necessary for us to hide from one another
because sometimes the eyes that are looking you know, are
are powered by nefarious brains. Okay, So that is I
think a really interesting point and a good way to
(09:55):
talk about the Patriot Act. Right. We sort of debated
about whether or not we talk about it at the
end of the today, this is a really good example
of of why privacy matters. Um, and just for everybody. UM,
just a little reminder about the Patriot Act that you know,
after none eleven, it brought sweeping changes to the way
the government accesses and utilizes information about private citizens. Um.
(10:18):
It's been criticized as undermining civil liberties, particularly parts of
the counter surveillance law. Right. How easy it is to
get wire taps in this sort of thing. Yeah, yeah,
and you know you don't have to get a quarter
or um. FBI can also search telephone, email and financial
records without a court order. Um. And the problem here
is that it can those that that sort of wide
(10:39):
latitude can be used outside of the context in which
it was originally meant for. Right. I mean it supposed
to be to go after terrorists, but um, and then
you know you do have FBI saying up until two
thousand and five, no, it's never been abused Okay, So
now you have other reports that have surfaced, um from
(10:59):
this is from first Amint Mint Center dot org, New
York Times, and Business Week. They all reported on this
that it's that actually the Patriot Act has been used
outside of its original context to remove homeless people from
trained stations, to pursue drug rings, and to collect financial
data on random visitors to Las Vegas. Yeah, so that
is random there. Um, so you know already and you know, um,
(11:22):
have a human mind works and historically how we have
behaved and when you have that sort of what I
think in this case is is an unbalanced here right
of power, but it can be used very readily against people.
And as you say, if you know, thankfully we live
in the United States, and at least we we think
that we live in a society in which our privacy
(11:43):
and our individual rights are respected. But you know, still
there's gray area there, and certainly there are other countries
in which people are not treated as fairly right. And
you know, like the period of McCarthyism wasn't that long
ago when digging around to find the evidence of communism
and people's past and people becoming blacklisted, Yeah, and um,
(12:08):
and at risk of sounding like you know, some sort
of a radical. It's it's any time a government is
given power, any time people hand over power to a government. Uh,
generally it's a little naive to expect the government and
to hand that power back over when they're done with
one particular gold or another, especially if that goal is
something say like defeating terrorism or you know, or or
(12:31):
winning the war on drugs or something that is it's
largely unattainable anyway. Yeah, and so you know, you got
that's the things that we need to consider when looking
at privacy. UM. And I do like Oscar's idea that
it's it's beneficial, you know that there's we are going
to obey the better angels of our nature and use
(12:52):
it the right ways. Um. I do think there's that possibility.
But we have already seen as a as I talked about,
that it's been used outside of its contact at least
the Patriot Act has. And uh, we will never know
the far ranging effects of the Patriot Act until much later.
A lot of that is because even the reports have
been filed, much of it has been redacted, so you
(13:13):
can if you're if you go to look at that report,
you might be able to see that the subject was
a female or a male, but pretty much everything else
is going to be blacked out. So it's hard to
say when you have a government that's not being fully
transparent itself. And of course they will say, you know,
we need to do that for security reasons, and you
know there's an angle there that that is relevant. Um.
But I think what is interesting to me about the
(13:34):
Patriot Act and uh, where we as a society sort
of came into our technological Uh I don't know, what
would you say, like our maturity maybe. Um, these things
seem to have dovetailed at the same time. Right, So
after None eleven, Uh, you have the Patriot Act, and
you also have people using the Internet and unprecedented numbers
(13:56):
and sharing information, our personal lives flowing onto it. Um.
Like I mean, I remember when I first got on
my Space. Um, you young listeners may not remember my Space,
but but it existed and I think still does. If
you're a band or something, you can still visit it. Yeah. Uh,
but but I remember it felt like this frontier where
it was like it was just a whole bunch of
(14:17):
young people who wanted to hang out or date each other,
you know, So you didn't really think about, well, you know,
who all this information you're putting out there, and and
then uh, and then later you realize, wow, that was
really stupid of me, you know, like the like the
we we we just talked in another podcast, The Cyber
Immortality about how we're different people. The person I was
(14:37):
a year ago as and who I am now. The
person a year from now isn't who I am now.
Certainly you're my Space person isn't definitely not the same
person or now. Yeah, and so it's you know, it's
like the MySpace you from ten years ago wasn't concerned
with how about getting a job somewhere necessarily or or
you know, or or or what his or her you know,
political opinions or social opinions at the time, we're compared
(15:01):
to what they might be at, you know, a decade later.
So um so so so it's interesting to see how
that's changed. Like I feel like a lot of us
are like that, where the Internet, what the Internet is,
has has changed in that time, and then who we
are has has changed. But to a certain extent, a
lot of the data we put out there, they say,
it's like putting information in the in on the Internet
(15:23):
is like putting p in a swimming pool. There's no
not really a good way to get it out again.
You can delete anything. This presensation is brought to you
by Intel sponsors of tomorrow. Well, and what I was
(15:44):
thinking too, is because of the Patriot devetailing with our
increased involvement with the Internet, is is it on a
subconscious level? Of course, we don't have any scientific data
to back this up, but so this is just a question.
But is it on some levels? Was that sort of
when we lost our privacy virginity? You know, like we
had a lot of us were very fearful at the time,
(16:05):
and um, certainly we know that the government was able
to pass the Act because of that. Um there was
a juggernaut of emotion. Yeah, following not eleven um and so,
and we all know that we act irrationally, and when
we're controlled by fear of our brain makes different decisions.
So once we sort of handed over the reins that way,
(16:26):
at least symbolically, if not everybody was affected by the
Patriot Act, did we then sort of say okay, and
then we're on this thing called the Internet and we're
exchanging all of this information and it's really neat, you know.
It's it's it's okay for me because I feel like
I'm getting something in return. I'm getting this instant gratification. Yeah,
it's like it's so it's like the you know, the
(16:48):
the revelation that, oh, the government's off in my business.
You know, you get used to that idea and then uh,
you know, it comes along the phone companies like, hey,
we want to know where you are at all times,
and You're like, all right, I mean the phone's pretty cool.
I can play a scrapple on it and and used
the map system to figure out where I am in Austin, Texas,
because I don't know if we would have made it
(17:08):
to the live recording. You. No, we wouldn't have made
it to the coffee shop and back had it not. Yeah,
we literally took out your iPhone and we're following the
dot as we were. Yeah, so maybe I you know,
I take that as the comforting bribe, but I'm giving
up something in the process. Well it's interesting to you
that that you're talking about the iPhone because there, um
there's a German Green Party politician his name is mult
(17:30):
Disputes and he went to court to find out what
his cell phone company, Deutsche Telecom, knew about his comings
and goings, because he was just sort of interested about
what sort of information they were amassing. He found out
that in a six month period from August thirty one,
two thousand and nine to February eight, two thousand and ten,
Deutsch Telecom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude
(17:52):
coordinates more than thirty five thousand times UM. It traced
him from a train on the way to turn Langan
at the start of the day and then through the
following night when he was back home in Berlin. So
oftentimes this will happen. They'll they'll take the coordinates just
because they're the signal is sort of being rebooted. But
when they looked at this case that that wasn't it.
(18:13):
It was just randomly sort of tracking his coordinates um,
which begs the question, what do they want with all
that data? You know? What was Obviously they can say, well,
maybe he went here and there, and we can give
this to marketing firms and better pinpoint his interests and
translates to bigger dollars. That's a possibility, but it's it's
(18:36):
still sort of interesting how and all the legalis that
we sign off on with our contracts for cell phones
or even you know, for downloading application. There there's um
what we're sort of giving away that right to our
privacy when it comes to that, Yeah, that giant wall
of text that comes with any uh system contract or
device contracting. I mean who reads that? I think I
(18:59):
heard one, like one NPR story about a guy who
read or maybe as a woman who read the contract.
But it's because if for a living they write those contracts,
but the normal people actually you know, leaf through. Does
it seems like you reach a fatigue point about one paragraph? Well,
I mean that's that's the whole point of legal ease,
I think, right, is to to fatigue you to the
(19:20):
point you're like, oh fine, I'll just just sign off
by paragraph six. It's talking about like the river of
the soul and and uh and bounding the spirit to
opjects and things like that, right yeah, And you're like,
I kept rivers so I just want this application. Um. So,
I mean it comes down to that sort of idea
of who does own our identity? Then? Um, and particularly
(19:42):
is we begin to store more and more data about
ourselves cloud computing and otherwise, Uh, you know, how is
that going to be played out in twenty years or
you know, we forever going to be tethered to a
company that owns our online uh projection of ourselves? Yeah,
because I mean typically these companies have to sort of
play pr our niceties when when talking about this about
(20:02):
who owns the information or they kind of skirt around
the issue. But in the end, like take something like Flicker.
You know, you put a lot of your life onto
a Flicker account. Uh. I mean to the point where
like if you if you own a Flicker account and
you were to die, like the Flicker account would kind
of be an online um memorial too, you know only
need you might want that to live on, or you
(20:24):
might want that to live on for someone that you
you knew, and uh you know who owns that? Who
owns your your profile with all your your your thoughts
or bails and correspondences. And if you are deceased, do
you uh any longer have rights to those photos? Can
they be used by someone else? Yeah? Yeah, Um, so
sort of brings up some good questions about that. I
wanted to talk a little bit too about when you're
(20:45):
talking about my space and and you know who who
you were then, who you are now, and these different
iterations of yourself that exist. Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicts
that every young person one day will be entitled automatically
to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in
order to disown youthful hijiink stored on their friends and
(21:05):
social media sites. Uh so here you go. I mean this,
this idea that you know, companies might sprout up to
actually whitewash your identity is very possible. It has been
talked about in the industry. Yeah, it's kind of kind
of like this idea that just like, all right, the
thirty year old me needs to get this new job.
I need to hire somebody to kill the twenty year
(21:28):
old me. We're still out there on the Internet looking
like a total goof is well, and think about the
fifteen year old today. Think about the sort of information
the fifteen year old has, and assume that the fifteen
year old is very open with with whatever information going
to share, because that's the thing for a lot of us,
Like you said, I was talking about when suddenly the
internet was here and like for a for a for
(21:49):
a large number obviously, when we remember that time. We
didn't grow up with the Internet. It just came into
our lives like this mysterious piper with a bunch of
rats following him, you know. And uh and we followed him,
uh and uh and it's been a weird experience ever since.
But other people have have been born and grown up
um in the Piper's under the Piper's spell. So so
(22:11):
they have a totally different idea of what privacy is
and what it should be. Yeah, and and that makes
me think about Sherry Turkle, who has written a lot
about technology and our relationship to it. And she makes
that point. She says, just because we grew up in
the Internet does not mean that it is growing up,
does not mean that it it is fully formed now. Um.
And it's still the wild West in many ways, in
(22:32):
terms of legalities, uh and in even sort of the
way that we interacted psychologically. But again, this fifteen year old,
I mean five years from now, what might we know
about her? You know? I mean think about all the
different ways that we can collect data on or we
google Earth, we can see where she lives. Um, we
know her Facebook status, UM, Twitter, four Square, her blog, missives,
(22:57):
we have access to her thoughts you know, possibly uh,
you know, maybe what she just purchased and where her
coordinates her I Q her sa T scores her grades
for does she have a criminal record? I don't know
her medical record? Which X man she would be according to?
Right right right? And think about that. I mean that
is this a lot of layer of detail? Um? And
(23:20):
you know, would what kind of control would she have
in five years over that or in like, you know,
thirty years from now she's running for public office and
someone's like she was on Team Edward back in the
Twilight Days. Do you want to vote for somebody who's
on Team Edward? Right? I know, because that is how
fickle us human beings are, right, we might look at
that and go, oh god, no, totally not Team Edward. Um.
(23:42):
So that kind of makes me think about the future
of data mining, especially for for younger generations who have
been accused of over sharing. Um. And again to go
back to Google CEO Eric Schmidt Um. This is from
an article Google and the Search for the Future from
the Wall Street Journal. He says, I actually think most
people don't want Google to answer their questions. He elaborates,
(24:04):
they want Google to tell them what they should be
doing next, And then he gives a scenario. Let's say
you're walking down the street walking here we are because
of the info Google has collected about you, we know
roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, who
your friends are. Google also knows, too, within a foot
where you are. And uh. Mr Schmidt then leaves it
(24:27):
to a listener to imagine the possibilities. If you need
milk and there's a place nearby to get milk, Google
will will remind you to get milk. Google knows you
need milk before you know that you need milk from
your list right. Um, it will tell you a store
ahead has a collection of horse racing posters that you like. Uh,
that the nineteenth century murder that you've been reading about
took place on the next block. So uh, are these
(24:49):
the things that really come up for you? Like? No,
I mean, I know you have Jack the Ripper fascinations. No,
this is just in Mr Schmidt's this this scenario, I
thought it was from the article. No, no, no, no,
I don't have any more spacing poster fetish Um. But
Mr Schmidt says that a generation of powerful handheld devices
(25:10):
is just around the corner that can fulfill this need,
and they can be adept at surprising you with information
that you didn't even know that you wanted. So this
is the point where maybe you cease to actually think
about things and are told or suggested about what to do.
So Google comes in. Basically they say, not only was
free will an illusion before, we're gonna go ahead and
completely dispel it and uh and just take over all
(25:32):
your decision making free will and privacy our illusion. Sorry
about that, but hey, here's you need some bread, so
you might as well pick that up with your milk. Yeah, so,
I mean it does. It's we still can't answer the
question is is it a fair trade off what we're
doing right now, the information that we're sharing. Um, but
it does make me wonder if we're sort of opening
(25:54):
our digital veins a bit too much and letting an
information flow. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how privacy
evolved of their changes, uh in the years ahead. I mean,
maybe it reaches the point where we just we had
we end up having to have a different view of it.
From a very early age, you know, where your mom
takes you aside and says, all right, this is the
kind of stuff you blog about or whatever it is
by that point and this is the kind of stuff
(26:15):
that is that is completely private. Maybe that becomes this
just more of an emphasis on the separation. I don't know,
And I mean we've already absorbed much of this mindset anyway, right,
so it maybe it's not too big of a deal. Um.
Maybe we aren't necessarily eroding our civil liberties or our privacy. Um.
But again, I think the Oscar brings up a really
(26:37):
good point about that, and especially the point about how
since we're in the middle of this, we we actually
need to look at it um and know that it's
not actually fully formed and think about it. So thank you, Oscar. Yeah. Well, hey,
I have us an email from another couple of individuals
whose last names will be with health for privacy reasons.
First we have one from Mark Anthony and Mark Anthony.
(27:00):
How is it y'all? Uh? They wrote it wrote out
y'all alright, like the podcast lots of food for thought.
Just like to comment on your podcast about audio hallucinations.
I used to live in Alaska after my parents dragged
me up there as a child. I would chop wood
and watch the Aurora borealis in the extremely long winters
and that super quiet environment. Laying back in the snow,
I would I would hear music often as I gazed
(27:22):
up at the sky. I've heard that this is a
common occurrence among people who have seen the Aurora. Can
you set some light on this or did I just
have a bad case of cabin fever? Oh? The music
was always some symphonic classical stuff, which I enjoy. But
I listened to metal uh at the time, a lot
of thrash strange, So that's interesting. Well, I kind of wondered, too,
(27:44):
is that during a period of twenty four hour daylight
in Alaska? Because everything I ever learned about Alaska is
from al Pacino in the movie in which he went
nuts or someone went nuts? Because there is that? What
it is I saw me it's a remake of of
a European film, which is, in my opinion, are superior.
The original starts stolen scarce guard and has a lot
more shades of gray in terms of the characters. Don't
(28:05):
even get me started on the fem Nikita and then
the astradization of that and in the American version. But yes,
so I don't know that that's the question I have.
You know, what were the what were the other circumstances
surrounding that, But I do think it's very interesting. But well,
I have seen the Aurora bore alice, if I remember.
I'm told I've seen the Aurora boor alice as the
thing because I was a child in Newfoundland and uh
(28:29):
and I think it was when my mom was in
the hospital to give birth to my youngest sibling. Um,
some friends of theirs like took us out and supposedly
show the siger roar about bore alice. But the only
thing I remember is reading a dinosaur booklet in which
one dinosaur like is this rated? Another one? So that
is that sounds like you probably as a small child.
But yeah, I totally missed out on this, or totally
(28:51):
it didn't make an impression on me, which you were
like dinosaurs evisceration high pretty lights you pale in comparison. Well,
maybe maybe a listener will out there will will share
their similar experiences or or just you know, get a
straight on the whole Aurora borealis and use it thing. Um.
I have another one here from j J j J says, Hi,
(29:13):
I'm listening to the Does Your Dog Love You? Podcast?
I was wondering why it is that we like to
watch dogs and other animals play so much. For that matter,
why do human beings will love to have fun or
other animals? I see my dog playing all the time,
and she never seems happier. She even seems to be
using some type of imagination while doing it. Where does
fun come from? From a strictly evolutionary standpoint, fund should
(29:35):
serve some kind of function to pass on one's genes.
In that sense, it's hard to imagine fun being beneficial
for us because I don't see where it accomplishes this.
What do you think? Maybe this would be a good podcast?
Keep up the great work. Pretty cool. Yeah, well that's
some interesting food for thought. We may have to explore
that later. I know that. You know, as we discussed
in that particular podcast, Um, it's fun to watch our
(29:58):
dogs play because we have that connection with them, and
it actually releases um oxytocin in the brain's right and
so we get this feel good mother infant uh drug
coursing through our brain when we're interacting with this dog
that we find adorable because it kind of sort of
looks like an infant. Well, also, I was thinking too
about little kids and when they play and they have
(30:21):
you know, fun I guess and air quotes. But um,
you know a lot of people have said that that's
the way that they're working out their own creativity and
also working out there's their social roles. So we have
that whole podcast on creativity. Yeah. I just think about
that too. So it's it's maybe another way to come
at problems, we know through play. Yeah, well, it intantly
comes to mind little boys playing um you know, sword
(30:42):
fights and whatever on the playground. They're they're kind of
learning to fight in the same way that a kitten
wrestles with things, because it's kind of learning to kill
small animals. Yeah. Yeah, I actually remember getting that. I
mean my brother and I were no, no, no, no no, no,
no play play fight. It's like an episode of Dexter childhood.
(31:04):
Um well cool, cool, that's that's some some awesome food
for out there. And if you haven't listened to that
episode and or a dog owner to check it out
and give us your feedback. And if you have some
feedback on this particular episode, um, and and and and
oh by the way, if you happen to be um
Georgian or Australian I don't mean any offense about the
whole sex criminal boat thing, but yeah, no, he's a
(31:26):
segment with the way back, way way back, and we
all have a touch of that note. I'll like debtors,
colonies and so on and sap. But yeah, if you
have any any cool feedback on the whole privacy thing,
let us know. I'd love to I'd love to hear
even just some amusing anecdotes about how your previous online
self has interfered or in some way affected your current
(31:47):
online self. Um. You can find us on Twitter and
Facebook is blow the Mind, and you can also drop
us a note at blew the Mind, at how stuff
worst dot com and more on this and thousands of
other topics. Visit how stuff works dot com. To learn
more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in
the upper right corner of our homepage. The how Stuff
(32:10):
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