Video
Surveillance, Human Rights to Privacy and Productivity
Let
me deal with a point Linux Guru, Jon Hall has to say about Technology
and Automation, first.
He
is a believer that technology pushes human progress fast forward;
Automation
and computers included.
I
believe in his mode of thinking but with a difference.
If
we are to travel in space to an alien planet, current mode of rocket
science is inadequate and will get us nowhere.
Similarly,
we have to drop that “God Created Us” and the “Intelligent
Design” forthright.
We
have to design a NEW FORM of transport technology that Warps “Time
and Space”, if we are to investigate and expand our horizon in space.
To
get there next generation has to be educated in STEM (Jon Hall’s
coining).
S
for Science (rather new science in my thinking that includes dark force
and dark matter).
T
for Technology
E
for Engineering and more importantly
M
for Mathematical Model and Calculation (computer assisted, ideally
string theory of many dimensions is my choice).
All
this is within Human Grasp in the next 100 years.
Now
let me come to the "Video Ordeal" every one of us goes through in our
daily life (buying the daily food provisions from the food store is not spared).
You
are under 24 hour video surveillance buying bread and butter.
That
annoys me a lot.
That
makes me to hesitate poking my finger through a loaf of bread to see
if it is soft (for an edantulant guy of my age) or crispy and crunchy
for a kid under video surveillance.
Without
this first hand human testing you have to buy whatever rotten stuff
is left in the shelf.
If
I am in service I will use video surveillance productively but
randomly to check;
1.
Survey “bottle necks” in service outlets.
2.
Survey improvement in a “chain of production line’
3.
Survey who is adopting (prevent) shortcuts in a “5S Facility".
Barring
those few business like approaches, I hate I am being watched and
in video, in every “Activity of Daily Living’, in a supermarket.
I
feel that we are treated like monkeys in business suit.
I
also consider, it as a violation of basic human right (to be able to
keep the dignity of private life as private life-what I eat, how I
pee or void my excesses).
I
know even my dog does not like for me (Except when he eats. He wants
one of us to be near his food plate) to be around when he is
attending to his daily voiding.
Imagine
we keep video surveillance 24 hours at home and your spouse watches
it daily.
It
is simply a major psychiatric disease called paranoia which there is
no treatment.
I
think our business world has gone totally bonkers with video
surveillance.
Few
observations.
Few
years ago, I detected a Manager (I did three days of detective work)
of a Commercial Bank using his video camera to watch and prey young
girls withdrawing money from a particular till.
On
the third day I went into his room and told my observations in detail
to his annoyance and I told him I never will come to his bank.
Just
today, I went to a business place where I meet an old friend of mine
(clever accountant) and have a little chat.
Moment
I entered the place, I felt bit unfamiliar and uneasy.
I
could not point my finger to the problem and I asked for the chair to
sit in front of his desk.
I do not like looking down on people when I
talk to.
The
chair was missing which in business sense was a major lapse.
He
got up and proceeded towards the entrance and while moving on told me
that they have installed video cameras and the friendly chat is being
watched by the minute not only by the owner but his wife at home on
weekends.
The
owner who started small and was dealing with smuggled electrical items in
potato containers, a decade ago ( I used to give him few friendly
advices, smuggling is not the way forward) has gone paranoid.
What
a turn around?
I
wish everybody knows his beginning.
I
now make it a point to avoid these institutes but once in a way throw
temper tantrums (to make the salesperson angry) well thought and
programed in my brain to see the response.
The
response is muted, the reason being the video surveillance.
That
is why, I believe, the video surveillance brings the productivity down
to almost zero.
Just
this week I went to pay the electricity bill and the cashier threw the
balance back at me like a devil.
Funnily
enough (usually I give an angry eye contact but no verbal exchanges)
he did not make me angry and I felt pity for the psychopath behind the
counter.
In
that sense most of the government servants including bank officers
are now psychopaths.
I
told my son why don’t you make me angry for a change that I am
getting very passive for an unusually long period of time.
He
laughing said “No Way”.
The
secret of my anger management is my Blind Dog.
He
is an anger manager par excellence!
Never
gets cross with any family member (even the food is late).
