Today, disappearing seems virtually impossible. This, I think, is what accounts for our renewed fascination with it. We are burdened with our search histories and purchase histories and data stats that constitute our profile, to then be lumped and farmed out and sold to the highest bidder. Disappearing means disconnecting―unimaginable yet totally captivating. Precisely because it has become less feasible, that deep urge to be anonymous, or even to be someone else, exists ever more powerfully within us. The desire to disappear doesn't go away just because times change and technology strangles us. That we cannot fulfill the urge as easily is perhaps the greatest tragedy.
That's from Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood. The act it studies certainly isn't for everyone. While most of us have parts of our life we might like to walk away from, faking your death means walking away from all of it, which is a less appealing proposition for most. A loved one who knows that you're still out there might be squeezed for information on where you are. Still, some have attempted it, and it seems likely that some have succeeded.
There's a broader fascination with people who break or at least tweak the rules. How could there not be? Every day brings more evidence that we're not the ones making the rules. Did you choose the law that all new cars have to have surveillance equipment and kill switches? Probably not, but if you buy a new car, it will certainly affect you.
Of course as more of these new cars are built, the old kind that only you could drive look better all the time. One skill that could become valuable in the next few years is the ability to shut off or better yet spoof these detectors so that they don't know what you you're doing at all hours of day and night.
2 comments:
This is an interesting topic to consider, not necessarily the pretending to be dead part, but the idea of disappearing from society altogether. There's the now legendary statement once made by school principals: 'This will go on your permanent record'. The funny thing at the time was that there was no such thing as a permanent record unless it was one found in police files after said person had committed illegal acts. Since that was a fairly rare occurrence nobody really took it seriously.
Nowadays everything is very different in that there really is a permanent record of our existence as members of society. It's easy enough to escape for the very poor, for the very rich or for someone who's willing to move out to the woods and establish a lifestyle of little or no outside communication (think Ted Kaczynski). Playing Dead, the book, plays around with the idea of deliberately exchanging one's current public identity for another that maintains the same lifestyle. In other words, weird people's hopes and dreams.. (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic).
Your point about the car manufacturing laws that will supposedly come into effect in 2027 basically tells us we are already invisible to our governments and the super rich who influence the same. Nobody asked us if we wanted a car that decides whether we're in a stable enough mood to drive. The law was pushed through by the same people who want AI systems to have something to control. They make money, the legislators make money, and everybody else is left to wonder why their car won't start if they just had a fight with a spouse. Then you have to find somebody who can turn the thing off.. for a price.
It's true that any warnings of something "going on your permanent record" were an empty threat. You'd effectively have no record once you graduated or otherwise left. Of course if you actually got kicked out of high school it would probably have bad ramifications for your future life. But no one would really care if you got through school and graduated but some faculty considered you to be on the naughty list.
There's a certain panopticon in effect in the developed world. Certain practices have been promoted as being more efficient, convenient, etcetera. But taken together, as they accumulate over time, the results of these decisions can wind up feeling like a prison. It's quite natural for some people to want to escape. Faking your death or otherwise exchanging your identity for another one can seem like a handy solution. Of course you have to be very clever to get away with this, particularly if you don't want to lose contact with your loved ones.
There's a disturbingly thin line when it comes to some tech companies. If they're providing a necessary service to the government--or just one that the bureaucrats consider vital--how much power does that give them? Do they eventually become the real government? That's a scary idea, because they don't seem to be constrained by the idea of a free citizenry. It certainly does seem like whoever is wearing the pants in DC considers the mass of citizens a problem to be solved rather than a set of people who deserve respect.
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