On Sep 26, 2011, at 9:08 PM, Joe Andrieu wrote:
> A while back Doc wrote:
>> When I wondered about the connection between anonymity and principles, Joyce
>> said this:
>>
>> "You can't have true autonomy unless you can move in an anonymous way."
>>
>
> I think this is a bit of a red herring. It's true and interesting, but
> it's not particularly relevant, because we don't want and can never
> actually have true autonomy unless we return to a state of nature.
>
> The entire point of society is to give up some of our natural rights in
> order that we might construct a better living. Even in the most
> libertarian views of the world, your autonomy ends where your neighbor's
> begins. Negotiating those boundaries is the whole point of the social
> contract that creates our civic world. What we're doing here with VRM
> is renegotiating that contract given the capability of the Internet to
> do things better.
>
> There is an argument that freedom requires anonymity. But that's not
> actually true. For two reasons.
>
> First, what freedom needs is the ability to engage in discourse without
> fear of reprisal from those who have a different view. If we can't
> engage in that discourse, there's no way for us, as a society, to fully
> consider the issues at hand. Anonymity is one way to do that, to a
> point. It certainly helps bring out contentious claims and counter
> points. But for any of those divergent views to actually change the
> system, you need relationships and credibility. So, while you might
> want anonymity from an oppressive state, you actually rely on being
> known by your fellow revolutionaries as someone they can trust. I want
> to be able to discuss what matters to me among my friends without being
> called to a congressional hearing about it, but I don't need to be
> anonymous when talking with those friends. Far from it, I want to know
> who they are and vice versa, because it's the relationship that makes me
> feel safe exploring unconventional ideas.
>
> Second, anonymity is never really possible. Mathematically, you are as
> anonymous as the number of people you can be confused with. It is a
> sliding scale of certainty that "you" are "you" to a mere estimate that
> "you" are one of several billion people. We literally have professions
> and degrees you can get for people trained in reducing those billions
> into legally actionable certainty. Forensics and plain old detective
> work can turn what might seem like an anonymous interaction on your
> public library's web terminal to an eye-witness and evidentiary tale
> that can get you convicted in court for what happened on that terminal.
> For all practical purposes, anonymity is a function of the cost of
> determining a correlatable identity. If it's worth it to find out who
> that "anonymous" actor is, it can usually be done. And society has
> consistently allowed gross breaches of our freedoms in pursuit of the
> identity of various criminals. The conversation to be had is about the
> price we are willing to pay in that pursuit and what burden of proof is
> needed to move to the next stage. So while we can shape how much we'll
> pay to resolve anonymity to identity, we can't actually assure
> anonymity.
>
> Instead, I think instead of anonymity, what we really want are two
> things, both of which Lewis Hyde discusses rather eloquently in Common
> as Air.
>
> First, we want to be free from tyranny. That is, we want to avoid power
> from one domain applied in another. We don't want our boss telling us
> what we can do in our time off. We don't want the government telling us
> how we can worship. We don't want our computer maker telling us what
> software we can and cannot run. And we don't want anyone telling us what
> we can and cannot do on other people's websites. Anonymity is one way
> to avoid certain types of tyranny. But it also enables other types. How
> much does it suck that the only time you can truly express yourself is
> when you're anonymous? That's not the kind of world I want to live in.
>
> Second, we want interstitial spaces where we, as a society, can engage
> in discourse about the boundaries between one domain and another without
> any particular domain having the upper hand. For example, we need
> intelligent--not belligerent--debates about whether fair use is more
> important than preventing unauthorized duplication.
>
> One of our biggest problems is that the two primary interstitial spaces
> of legal standing, the courts and the legislature, are dominated by
> moneyed interests, namely corporations and the wealthy. Between
> lobbyists and well-paid lawyers, it's very hard for the average person
> to be heard in those fora. Again, anonymity can provide a means for
> participating in discourse, but that's still less desirable than
> speaking freely to our brothers, parents, neighbors, and bosses without
> fear of reprisal... and have them know that we are that sibling, child,
> neighbor or employee. A heartfelt argument means more when it comes
> from someone you know, someone you get is a "normal" person.
>
> So, while anonymity is an easy option as a rebuttal to the surveillance
> state, I don't think it is actually what we want. Instead, we want to
> be able to connect in contexts where our exposure is understood and
> acceptable, where we know what we are getting into, where we can tell
> the difference between an intimate chat with friends, and taking a stand
> at a city council hearing. Being anonymous helps us avoid certain types
> of tyranny, but it doesn't contribute to the fabric of a healthy
> society.
>
> Anonymity is a special case of privacy. And privacy is contextual. If we
> can resolve the context management problem, we can solve them both.
>
> -j
>
> --
> Joe Andrieu
> SwitchBook Software
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