Privacy and telephones [was Re: Has SF got the future wrong?]
Kai Henningsen
"Enlightenment" thread.
but...@schultz.io.com (Captain Button) wrote on 25.03.99 in <7de9so$q3u$1...@hiram.io.com>:
> Wild-eyed conspiracy theorists insist that on Thu, 25 Mar 1999 14:23:59
> -0500, Richard Hanley <Rha...@UDEL.EDU> wrote:
>
> [ text routed to voice mail ]
>
> > I've just returned to the U.S. after nearly three years in Australia,
> > and I've been struck by a particular phenomenon: nobody answers their
> > telephone anymore. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. But I'd say
> > that at least 90% of the (mostly personal) calls I make get a machine
> > message. (I was particularly astounded when this happened while we were
> > car-hunting. you'd think that someone advertising things for sale might
> > feel obliged to answer their phone occasionally!)
>
> On the commercial side, I wonder how much this has to do with
> downsizing and "lean, mean" management. Companies may not be willing to
> pay people to sit around answering the phone. Of course, in the bad old
> days you could underpay women to do this....
>
> > This trend (if it's genuine, and not just a conspiracy directed at me)
> > is of course accompanied by the proliferation of cellular phones (which
> > also aren't answered by their carriers as often as I'd expect).
>
> > Perhaps even without videophones, modern communication technology is
> > proving too much for most of us, and our need for privacy dictates that
> > we use answering machines to buffer ourselves against (what,
> > exactly?)... Is it just unwelcome communication (e.g. from strangers)
> > that we seek to avoid, and simply block out everyone to achieve this?
>
> This is an area where, in my experience, individuals vary very widely.
> I almost never get calls, despite having a reasonably active social
> life. I have plenty of friends, but I'm always the one calling.
>
> I get maybe 2 legitimate personal calls a week. I get more
> wrong numbers and telemarketing calls.
>
> But I've lived with people who get 10+ personal calls a day.
> I don't know what makes the difference, but it's clearly something
> individual.
>
> > Part of the reason I raise this issue is that the idea of carrying a
> > phone around with me is anathema. I enjoy my "incognito" times, and
> > vastly prefer media like email and NGs, which one can attend to or
> > ignore at leisure...
>
> Me too. I call people less than I used to, since I can email or chat
> with them online.
>
> > Sorry for the speculative ramble, but it does seem to connect with what
> > the future holds for us as technology advances, and SF has lots of
> > cautionary tales about receding from contact with other humans.
>
> True, though often these works confuse the issue by considering
> some kinds of contact not really contact. Chatting or emailing
> people *is* contact with real people. Or if it isn't, then
> I'm not a real person either.
>
> I tend to consider a lot of the people complaining about this
> to be people whose primary skill is manipulating people
> in face to face situations whining at being denied what they
> consider their just prey.
>
> Of course, other SF has people only interacting with programs
> which don't have humans on the other end, and this is a legitimate
> danger, IMHO.
>
> ObSF:
> Bruce Sterling 'Bicycle Repairman" - Everyone has a "mook", a
> pseudo-AI program that pretends to be you and screens your
> phone calls. Mooks spend most of their time fending off calls
> from other peoples' mooks.
>
> _The Man who Awoke_ by L. Manning, with the stories about
> people living in their own individual "cities", and the
> story where everyone is living in virtual realities.
>
> --
> [ but...@io.com ]"DOGBERRY: Marry, sir, they have committed false report;
> moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth
> and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust
> things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves." Shakespeare - _Much Ado.._
Kai
--
http://www.westfalen.de/private/khms/
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