With my very first article here, I introduced a topic, whose importance cannot be overrated: privacy, soon followed by its sibling freedom. It was Why Should You Always Write under a Pseudonym?, published on this platform on 16 March 2020. I am not writing about it all the time because there is just so much to say about it and I don't want to repeat myself too much. However, I consider my personal privacy as a part of life's necessities and I am going quite far to protect it. I have also been researching it and writing about it since my late teens, when I first realised its importance.
As actor Marlon Brando once said, "Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite." Thanks to a gradually more intrusive attitude from governments and the general public alike, its importance is growing all the time. In a not too distant future, privacy will be a prerequisite not only for a good life, not only for freedom, but perhaps for survival.
I have published only three articles here being purely about privacy:
Why Should You Always Write under a Pseudonym?
Understand How Connectivity Negatively Affects Your Privacy
Privacy: What is it? Do we need it? Why are People Afraid of it?
They focus on principles, because privacy, as everything else, starts in your own mind, with how you think. So far, I have deliberately avoided writing about practical methods and tools to achieve it. However, don't trust everything you read on the internet about that. The business is full of people who don't know the subject more than superficially, or who try to mislead you deliberately. It is also an axiom that, in the privacy business, an over-published tool quickly becomes useless. Those who try to violate your privacy also learn about it, and eventually figure out how to break it or stop it. There are countless examples of that this has happened, and that to an extent that made solvers of privacy problems cause more loss of privacy than anyone or anything else.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”
(Groucho Marx)
Privacy is closely related to other topics, such as freedom and criticism of politics and society – and I have published some articles about this as well. My thoughts about politics and politicians can be found in The Mind of a Politician, which is a short and very focussed analysis of the political mind, and in Envy & Fear: Why do People Desire Power?.
And more generally about politics and society in:
Private & Public – Is it Justified With a Free Press When Privacy is Outlawed?
Discrimination & The Legal Fiction of Private Ownership
Justice, Law & The State As a Self-Contradiction
Identity Theft: Its Cause & How to Root it Out
Nation & State, Art & Culture; How confusion serves a purpose
Assorted Absurdities of Democracy
Antiterrorism: Fight a Monster and Become a Worse Monster
With special aim at the Nanny State and people's unwillingness to take responsibility for themselves, I wrote Either Health Freedom or Slavery - A Little of Each is not Possible. I argue that if you want freedom, you must take full responsibility for yourself. If you want to be taken care of, forget about freedom, you are no longer morally entitled to it. Freedom and responsibility for self are, and must be, inseparable.
When we mention freedom, I would like to stress the “freedom from the spirit of the times” as well. I discuss that in Old-Fashioned or Modern? Don't Care about Zeitgeist, Care about Quality. This is very important. If you just follow the stream, you are not free.
Or the freedom from belonging... to country or generation! The Strength of Being an Outsider (by choice).
All these articles can be found in my Index, under Privacy & Antibigbrotherism. Other articles found there are:
Why Do I Not Write about Cryptocurrencies?
Crypto Quotes + Comments (Discussed in Retrospection 3)
Antibigbrotherism Quotes – and about Creating a New Word (Discussed in Retrospection 3)
We Are All Mortal, Anyone can Die at Any Moment: Who will get Your Bitcoins when You Die?
These last ones are only indirectly connected to the topic, but they belong here anyway.
“This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER... it is my responsibility to enforce all the laws that haven't been passed yet. It is also my responsibility to alert each and every one of you to the potential consequences of various ordinary everyday activities you might be performing which would eventually lead to The Death Penalty (or affect your parent's credit rating). Our criminal institutions are full of little creeps like you who do wrong things...”
(Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage Act 1)
My series “Retrospection” is primarily created for new readers of mine, as a manual into my production at this platform so far - but it can be read by anyone who wants to explore my articles topic by topic, rather than doing so in chronological order. In addition to that, my retrospections contain new comments and from time to time short personal stories connected to the relevant topic or topics.
Previously published issues are:
Retrospection 1 (About Japanese Art & Cultural History.)
Retrospection 2 (About Egyptology & about Coffee.)
Retrospection 3 (About Quotes, Sayings and Proverbs; and about creating new words.)
Retrospection 4 (About Dinosaurs, Reptiles, Dragons and to some extent Birds.)
Copyright © 2021 Meleonymica/Mictorrani. All Rights Reserved.
You find all my writings on Read.Cash, sorted by topic, here.
My 3 most recent articles:
Dictionary of Selected Spices + A Little Story
Medicine, Modern Superstition & Flawed Paradigms
Another Three Spices: Aphrodite's Birth, Smoke & King Minos' Daughter
In todays world I think it is almost impossible to have a good level of privicy unless you give up your phone, computer pay for everything with cash and wear a disguise when we go out. The way I see it we can only be careful not to give away too much privacy freely. It is so hard in reality to go completly off grid in this day and age. I will check out some more of your articles. Keep up the good work.