Centaur:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the descendents of mildly social pack animals (primates), our first instinct is to drive the offenders out of our tribes (out of sight, out of mind). Unfortunately, while this serves primates well (or evolution would never have selected for it), it serves modern humankind with our quasi-hive-like communities rather poorly since its easy for exiled members to reinvent themselves and reenter.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some insular societies try to mitigate this by attempting to seal their boundaries with the wider world. But the market's need to trade goods, services and information with other communities (due to what economists call the law of comparative advantage) ensures the borders are never really sealed, and the result is usually all of the disadvantages of isolationism and none of the advantages of a small community where everybody knows your name).
In the end, sunlight really is the best disinfectant. It's never going to be perfect because people also need privacy since information is leverage and there are other members of a society who will use personal information to facilitate exactly the sort of bad behavior the elimination of privacy was trying to expunge in the first place.
I would humbly submit to cckid2006 that, although the impulse to simply leave the tribe and its problems behind is quite understandable, it's better to be part of the solution by being an advocate for better behavior. Defectors thrive largely because society implicitly allows their behavior to go unremarked upon. Silence is the shield of injustice. Originally Posted by Centaur
How the hell do you come with this eloquence on short notice. Have you considered bottling this and selling it to the Wall Street Journal? I usually attempt the most succinct posts possible. Your verbal elaboration adds the empathetic persuasion which effectively proselytizes your audience. Dis's good shit!