The next Xbox is called the Xbox One, and like the current Xbox, which is three hundred and fifty-nine more better than the new one, it has it a Kinect. These are things that I knew going in to the reading of this article. What I didn't know, and what is decidedly different, is that the Kinect is mandatory, and cannot be turned off or disconnected, and it listens to you ever when the console is off. There is no disKinect, so to speak. If you buy the Xbox One, you are making Microsoft one of the family. The creepy one that watches you silently while you do stuff, and listens to you when you think he's asleep.
I don't know if you have all read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but this is the shit he was on to. In his book he has a television with a video camera, just like the one in the Kinect, that cannot be turned off. I loved this book, because it resonated with a paranoia that, for me, was pre-existing by the time that I read it, and I take solace that there are people who share my fears. They seem less ridiculous. To say that Nineteen Eighty-Four depicts a nightmare state, is in no way hyperbole. Those of you who have known me for longer than some of the others, may remember a period in which lenses and monitors were not a thing I welcomed easily into my day to day. This is a fear that I have literally been carrying around with me since early childhood.
I don't care who collects data on me. That's like getting to know me based solely on the way in which I interact with the world. In this I am happy to be a statistic. Nearly every part of our intelligent decision making is based on statistics, or a bastardised form thereof. Statistics are good, and the more information we gather the better the statistics. This I understand, and am happy with. Other people's cameras in my house is a whole other type of invasion of privacy. This is wrong. Children will badger their parents and there will be little cameras in our living rooms. The person who makes a little flip-down cap to cover the lense should win an award. The first person to hack this thing should get a medal. On the other hand, don't buy it. In the end people will though. As a species, we're sick like that.
You could just put a towel over it.
I don't care who collects data on me. That's like getting to know me based solely on the way in which I interact with the world. In this I am happy to be a statistic. Nearly every part of our intelligent decision making is based on statistics, or a bastardised form thereof. Statistics are good, and the more information we gather the better the statistics. This I understand, and am happy with. Other people's cameras in my house is a whole other type of invasion of privacy. This is wrong. Children will badger their parents and there will be little cameras in our living rooms. The person who makes a little flip-down cap to cover the lense should win an award. The first person to hack this thing should get a medal. On the other hand, don't buy it. In the end people will though. As a species, we're sick like that.
You could just put a towel over it.
No comments :
Post a Comment