Authored by Todd Hayen via OffGuardian,
What was once the paranoid whisper of conspiracy has become the marketed convenience of 'life logging' - yet beneath the promise of perfect memory lies the total erasure of privacy, turning every shrew into a unwitting performer on the surveillance stage.
(If you haven't read enough of my work to know what a "shrew" is, read this: Sheep and Shrew)
During a recent three-hour ramble with my sister - one of those wide-ranging, idea-sparking talkathons we've shared for years - the little recording device I had just bought, attached to my phone, quietly drank it all in. Every tangent on culture, politics, family, and the state of the world was captured, summarized, and later served back as a tidy slideshow of "highlights." It auto-suggested calendar entries, pulled up past chats on demand, and generally made itself indispensable.
For a moment, I felt the rush: This is the future. No more forgotten details, no more scrambling for notes. Pure magic.
I will disclose immediately that I have purchased several of these odd devices mostly out of curiosity, but also out of an attempt to record various "having fun moments" of my life (like a recent dog adventure to a local pond, and our three-day trip to New York City to see Swan Lake). I won't go into my personal experience (with the intentions just stated) out of fear it will bore you; ask in the comments if you would like to know.
Here I will make my general comments on what I feel the impact such devices wil
