— Michael P. Lynch on the New York Times' Opinionator blog, "Privacy and the Threat to the Self" Michael P. Lynch on the New York Times’ Opinionator blog, “Privacy and the Threat to the Self”:
To get a sense of what I mean, imagine that I could telepathically read all your conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings – I could know about them in as much detail as you know about them yourself – and further, that you could not, in any way, control my access. You don’t, in other words, share your thoughts with me; I take them. The power I would have over you would of course be immense. Not only could you not hide from me, I would know instantly a great amount about how the outside world affects you, what scares you, what makes you act in the ways you do. And that means I could not only know what you think, I could to a large extent control what you do.
Somewhat related to my previous post on “nothing to hide” as a failure of logic, there is also the fascinating idea that as we lose our privacy, we lose ourselves. There are some references to torture and detainment camps, and the basic idea is you are less human when your every thought is exposed, and for those who know, you become an easily manipulated object. Fascinating essay.