Friday, July 18, 2014: 7:00 pm (Olson): The social construct of privacy is rather new, a result of the civil society. It was supposed to protect people from the state and/or government and its overreach, a "right to be let alone," as one of the central legal texts defined it. Privacy promised a safe space for the individual to develop new ideas without premature criticism and discrimination, a space where individual freedom unfolded. Did it really deliver on that promise? And was that the promise we needed as a society? Privacy isn't dead as some people might want to tell you, but it has changed significantly in its definition, in its relevance. And it no longer works as the central foundation of our social utopias. Private people are alone, powerless, and often invisible when faced with exactly those powerful entities that the Internet was supposed to help us fight (corporations, government agencies, etc.). Under the blanket term #postprivacy, some people have started developing ideas on how to rethink how we can harness not only the power of the Internet but the powers, ideas, and skills of each other. How will we as a social structure work between social networks, government snooping, and encryption? How can we save and form the future? This talk will give you a few new ideas.

tante