Tuesday 22 May 2007

Big brother’s watching, but who cares?

I certainly don’t care a fuck if he is; everything I do these days is completely out in the open and public. Okay I might have a few vices that I’ll make a half-hearted attempt to keep to myself, but they’re nothing that I wouldn’t talk about if asked, or if the conversation turned in their particular direction.

Anyway, it’s a major point these days, especially here in the UK, just how much we’re being watched by Big Brother, the dystopian figurine of George Orwell's classic, 1984. Fucking cameras everywhere, infringing on our privacy, well I’ll tell you something now, I go out of my way to try and tell people what I’m doing all the time, and still would be if ‘he’ wasn’t watching. I’m not doing anything wrong, at least most of the time, and if it helps keep fuckheads and other sociopathic monsters out of my life, then all-the-better.

The point was raised today from an article I saw on Engadget, now alongside the countless static CCTV cameras that litter the streets, apparently here in the UK we’re getting flying drones to record us from the skies, WOOOoooOOOOOO0000OOOO! But what the fuck? Only dirty shitbags out of the loop would say that’s a bad thing.

Take myself for instance, I have two blogs, this one and a portfolio website containing pretty much all the writing I’ve ever done that I’m half proud of. I have a Flickr page where virtually all the images I take go, I have a Jaiku account that microblogs everything I do all the time. I have a facebook that contains my workplace, telephone number, the books I like, the music I listen to, the friends I keep, even right down to what quotes I enjoy and publicly displays conversations I have with my friends. I have a Myspace that plays host to my deviant alter-ego character Jack Rawstone, and I have Digg and Del.icio.us accounts on which you can see all the news I enjoy reading and other interests I have.

I don’t have a private life, it’s all online, and I couldn’t be fucking happier, because I’m immersed in a revolution and finally have a title I can give myself when my grand kids ask, ‘What were you all those years ago granddad?’ |And of course my answer will be;

‘I was one of those bloggers kids, one of those in the loop, living life right on the brim of technology with a great grasp of what was going on in the world, and not through editorialised, weighted bullshit, from the people around me and across the globe.'

And they’ll answer;

‘Wow.’

So let big brother watch, he’s certainly not on the prowl for me, and if he is, here’s a call to arms, come on down, let us have a little play and see what happens. I’ll get my hamster powered paper shredder on the go to get rid of all those vital documents, and set up my ElectroPlasmaLaser that’ll zap you into a vapour. HA. Fucker, you wouldn't get me that easily.

And the hedonism bit, oh yes, well you know, if you’re a narcissistic bastard like myself, you enjoy the openness because you like the fact that everyone is looking at you. So as I sit back with my plasma beer glass, laughing like Deniro at the end of Cape Fear with a Romeo and Juliet cigar in the right-hand side of my mouth, knowing the WORLD has access to ME, I smile and think, 'now that’s an ego-trip'.

Just a short one tonight, more tomorrow.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

One has a right to make one's private life public but should it be an obligation? What happens when monitoring center staff start supplementing their incomes by selling info to private dicks? What happens when our lack of eternal vigilance
results in us losing aspects of our freedom?

We are right to be worried about crime, but wrong to think that CCTV, ID cards, unmanned drones, speed cameras etc are the answer. How do these measures tackle the root causes of crime? How do they bring the most excluded members of society back into the fold?

Civil liberties ain't the worst of this. The middle classes are happy with the new methods. They say "I have nothing to hide!" Inside they are thinking that CCTV etc are there to make sure the chavs and ethnics don't get away with it. This doesn't say good things about our society.

How divided we have become! One half looks to the government for protection from the other half. That other half look to the government for handouts ( paid for by the afrighted half). The only winner is the government.

Politicians: Stop watching and start listening!

Love the shredder :-)