Dilemmas and Drones

Governance should be all about being future oriented. A substantial amount of future-literacy is helpful then, though generally speaking this competence is not very institutionalized in politics and government. As the cliché goes, we are living in times of exponential change. It makes governance-as-a-future-oriented preoccupation even more urgent. However, it isn’t easy — diverted by so many pressing delusions of the day politicians are. Some themes here:

During job interviews asking for sexual, political or religious preferences, let alone for potential pregnancies is forbidden by law, as it reeks like discrimination. However, meticulously researching some one’s social media behavior on his beliefs, her looks etcetera isn’t bound by any rule. Should we keep it that way?

When you want to visit a website but refuse the accompanying cookies you are out and can forget entering. Is such a razor-sharp choice between opt-in and opt-out reasonable, in the era of the indispensable worldwide web. Isn’t the choice like a collective strangling gesture? Where are the politicians to raise the question? When I visit a hotel and they ask me to pay and extra amount for the oxygen I will use in my room, I think this utterly unreasonable. Even though I could opt for not breathing anymore. Isn’t the worldwide web not our virtual oxygen?

You smart phone, television and computer have begun registering your facial expressions while you are using them. This in order, naturally, to get to know you better emotionally and serve you accordingly. You might consider this utterly handy. But it happens equally utterly non-transparent. Though admittedly, there will be some mentioning of it in the little letters of the accompanying guide — of which we all know that nobody reads them? Shouldn’t we, and our politicians, forbid registering face-recognition technologies? And certainly so, when the use of it is not continuously and persistently announced?

And the drones that begin to swarm above our heads? Are they allowed to take pictures of our behavior in the garden, the living room, the bed room? And how long can these pics be saved? Do you still have nothing to hide? May drones penetrate your living spheres unauthorized? Are you permitted to shoot them out of the air (the American way) or try to damage them by the use of catapults (more the European way)?

Also check out my other stories on drones, they are really worth it 🙂