Privacy, that is to say the un-otherwise-observed relations with one’s own mind (via information intake and creation) and the minds of others (via actually technologically and observationally private exchanges) is absolutely fundamental to the possibilities of both local and distributed human intelligence.

Any system that disposes of this, or captures it for purposes related to power, commerce, or counterfeited communality is… effectively and almost literally… evil. It ruins our minds by introducing not merely the possibility, but the fact of malignly motivated extrinsic observers.

And one of the foundations of consciousness is the imagining of observation…

My point here isn’t to point out a fundamental toxin in our electronic communications… but rather to insist upon a transformation: we must return trustworthy privacy to electronic activity. For everyone. Forever.