We have met the Devil of Information Overload and his impish underlings, the computer virus, the busy signal, the dead link, and the PowerPoint presentation.
James GleickRead
Is privacy about government security agents decrypting your e-mail and then kicking down the front door with their jackboots? Or is it about telemarketers interrupting your supper with cold calls? It depends. Mainly, of course, it depends on whether you live in a totalitarian or a free society.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote discusses the varying interpretations of privacy based on the societal context, whether oppressive or free.
James Gleick's quote highlights the complex nature of privacy, suggesting that its significance is influenced by the type of society one inhabits. In a totalitarian regime, privacy is heavily compromised by government surveillance and control, while in a free society, privacy concerns may manifest in less invasive forms, such as annoying telemarketing calls. Thus, the value and meaning of privacy are not absolute but highly contextual.
Themes
PrivacySocietyFreedomGovernmentTotalitarianism
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about government surveillance and individual rights, this quote illustrates the risks to privacy.
More from James Gleick
All quotes →A good part of 'The Information' is about the transition from an oral to a literary culture. Books effected such a great transformation in the way we think about the world, our history, our logic, mathematics, you name it. I think we would be greatly diminished as a people and as a culture if the book became obsolete.
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I'm trying to look at many, many things in modern life that I believe are going faster, and I'm trying to look at why they're going faster and what effect they have on us. We all know about FedEx and instant pudding, but it doesn't mean we've looked at all the consequences of our desire for speed.
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Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.
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Every time a new technology comes along, we feel we're about to break through to a place where we will not be able to recover. The advent of broadcast radio confused people. It delighted people, of course, but it also changed the world.
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"Half genius and half buffoon," Freeman Dyson ... wrote. ... [Richard] Feynman struck him as uproariously American-unbuttoned and burning with physical energy. It took him a while to realize how obsessively his new friend was tunneling into the very bedrock of modern science.
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