Surveillance society
So, so much for posting every day! The cold kind of took me out of action for a few days and I didn’t have the mental wherewithal to do much besides keep myself from suffocating on my own fluids. I’m feeling better today, largely due to the purchase of honest-to-god pseudoephedrine, not that stupid impostor phenylephrine. Curse those damn meth-heads for spoiling it for the rest of us!
When I went to the pharmacy to get the Real Stuff, I noticed that you can’t even buy other products in which pseudeophedrine is an active - but not the main - ingredient. I can’t imagine how much cough syrup you’d have to buy to distill enough of the good stuff to make a batch of meth. But the whole thing got me to thinking about how much of our freedom we just…hand away. I had to show ID to buy cough syrup. COUGH SYRUP. I had to sign and show ID to get the pseudoephedrine. I know drug abuse has terrible consequences for people, but honestly…when did we stoop to this? It seems like putting the rest of society through intrusive practices to keep some people from abusing themselves is a bad trade-off. It’s just the slippery-slope-ness of it that gets me…today it’s cough syrup and sudafed, tomorrow it’s having to show your ID just to enter the pharmacy! (I know, alarmist much?) Bruce Schneier is one of my favorite security bloggers. He posted a great article in wired about how security and privacy are not opposites. (Don’t get me started on airline screening procedures, really….) I think we’ve gotten far too used to handing over our phone numbers, IDs, zip codes, and other information to people just because we think we’re not doing anything wrong personally so we don’t have anything to worry about. I know we have to strike a balance, but I think it’s tipped way too far in favor of the panopticon.
Similarly, I’m seriously thinking of opting out of the credit economy. We have a mountain of credit card debt caused by thoughtless spending. I’ve been thinking about cancelling all our cards (after we pay them all off) and living on a cash economy, with the exception of paying bills online. If we want something, save up for it. If we don’t need it, don’t buy it.
So here goes day 1 of not buying shit I don’t need.
