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From: Randolph Fritz <randolph@xxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 11:56:03 -0800
Brian,
My general comment on this whole area is that surveillance and oppression
are not the goal of any science primarily concerned with understanding,
though such sciences have often been tools of such. The point of physical
science, anyway, is the better understanding of things, not the conversion
of people into things and many physical scientists have politcally opposed
such abuses; Einstein and Freeman Dyson both come to mind. (Unfortunately,
so does Edward Teller.)
The modelling of a person as a statistical profile is something that comes,
I believe, to every highly-urbanized society--any domain where one
interacts extensively with too many people to know personally. The
Japanese even have words for public and private realities; tatamae and
honne. Ironically, the terms have an architectural origin; tatamae refers
to the raising of a roof beam, while honne refers to the finishing of the
house. Architecture is one of the places where the public and private
meet, grindingly, jarringly.
R.