He thinks he's great. That's what he thinks.

It was a really dumb assignment. We had to read this interview which ostensibly covers Bono's views on the future of our world, and write a 3-5 response paper on it while talking about our own ideas on the future. Right.

I could barely find anything of substance at all in that interview. He just talk about 'The War On Terror' and how we have to win it with love and puppies and education. All very good and true stuff, but not very interesting or original or.. anything really. He seems to have perfected that politicians way of speaking where he can just talk and talk and not say anything which can offend anyone or really be talking about anything at all.

this is my attempt at taking the assignment seriously, I unforetunately barely give lip service to Bono in my paper, finding quotes that kind of have to do with my ideas and basically taking them out of context and making the quotes seem more insightful than they actually are.

Last year a clip circulating around the internet from a TV station revealed that information used in the trial of a mob boss was obtained through eavesdropping on him through his cell phone. What caught the attention of newscasters was the fact that the cell phone in question was, at the time of the incident, powered down and in the man’s pocket. Once this information was made public, it created waves as Americans began to come to terms with a rapidly changing concept of ‘Privacy’. Currently, most citizens of the United States would consider conversations taking place within their own homes, their personal taste preferences, and where and how they spend their leisure time to be private matters taking place away from scrutiny. Thanks to the advent and rapid development of new technologies such as cell phones, credit cards, and the internet, these traditional conventions of privacy no longer hold true.

During a recent interview in Rolling Stone Magazine musician and activist Bono compared the rapid morphing of culture and conventions to a 45 record “The grooves were going round and round, like a spiral, and things started to repeat much quicker”. With everything old becoming new again at an ever quickening pace, in conjunction with technological innovations increasing at an exponential rate, it can be difficult to grasp the zeitgeist of patterns within the concept of ‘privacy’ as it grows and morphs. The routines of average citizens are keeping pace with the developments of cell phones, credit, and internet technologies and therefore concepts such as ‘privacy’ are becoming a thing of the past.

It’s taken less than a generation to get the majority of the population to willingly carry a cell phone with them at all times. Laws are already in the works to make it mandatory for cell phones to have GPS pinpointing technology embedded within them. The excuse for this blatant infringement of privacy is for 911 emergency operators to be able to locate cell phone callers. Even before these laws are passed, cell phone companies have had wild success in marketing this as a feature that consumers can add to their cell phones and into their cars voluntarily.

Markets in Asia and Europe already have these technologies in place; cell phones are able to function as ID and credit card, with the ubiquitous GPS systems built in. This technology allows individuals to be constantly under surveillance, their conversations to be recorded, and their movements kept on file.

Though cell phones are looking to replace credit cards physically, the credit card companies have already become pervasive within the financial affairs of every society; indeed they are necessary for almost any business to take place. The re-growth of internet commerce and the potentially unethical union of banks and credit cards have given new life to the amount of information consumers are giving away, and the reach that these companies have into the lives of ordinary individuals. Markets the world over have found themselves embracing the supposed ease and safety nets built into credit card technology. Partially as a result of this widespread acceptance, credit cards have rendered checks, and soon cash, to be obsolete. With so many commercial activities taking place electronically there is little hope for privacy to shield individuals and their purchases from entering the public domain.
Credit Card companies have been collecting, storing, and selling personal information for years; newer to this distasteful market are internet behemoths such as Google and Yahoo. Though both Google and Yahoo have branched out in recent years they began as simple search engines, which are powerful tools for consumers to find information and interact with the myriad of websites on the internet. When consumers use these tools to search for information, any and all of what is entered into the search bar is available to be utilized by the company who owns the search engine and anyone they care to do business with. If people were to go to a library to find information, it is doubtful that the librarian would be following them around with a marketer in tow to note which books are being looked at. Through the use of search engines the once private thoughts and interests of individuals are becoming yet another bankable part of the economy.

In his documentary ‘No Maps for these Territories’, author William Gibson explores the concept of a ‘blended reality’. In this reality there is no distinction between an online persona and a meat space persona. From wherever they are in physical reality, people will constantly be acting within the easily track able world of cyberspace; as Bono puts it “In the near future, distance will no longer decide who your neighbor is”. No longer will there be an expectation of privacy about an individuals’ location, background, thoughts, interests, acquaintances, home, work, income, or marital status. All of this information will simply become part of the public domain.

When Bono states, “everyone who values freedom, progressive thinking, innovation has a stake in America” it’s important to remember that innovation has the potential to impede upon personal freedoms already in place. The freedoms offered by globalization should not be incompatible with personal freedoms that often lead to essential innovations. As humanity enters this overly digital age they leave behind remnants of the old world; in this light the idea of a ‘private life’ is becoming outdated and archaic.