[HalibetLector]

The key difference is they traded privacy for personal trust and rapport. When you live in the same foxhole with your entire family and are always interacting with the same small community, trust is built up over time. You knew everybody in a personal way, not just as an abstract notion of a person on the other side of the world.

The way we're heading, we'll have neither personal trust nor privacy. It's not JUST the lack of privacy that's a problem, it's the fact that any stranger can know everything there is to know about you. In a small community, everybody has to have good working relationships with everybody else or the community dies. On the internet, not everybody has your best interests in mind.

[jiggy2011]

There's also the issue that information is easily spread "virally" online. The information that is actively spread though tends to be stuff that is outrageous or scandalous (often taken out of context) or whatever rather than the positive but boring stuff.

Star wars kid could probably cure cancer, but he'd still be "the star wars kid" to most people.

[true_religion]

I think the issue is that if we know only one thing about you, that one thing is your label.

I see a policeman on TV, he's a 'cop'. Sure he may be a father, avid sci-fi junkie, and so on, but all I see is one dimension.

If Star Wars Kid cured cancer, we wouldn't forget about his light saber antics but we'd add that to our impression of him----now he's a nobel winning scientist, with an impressive intellect, who has saved potentially billions of lives..... oh and in his youth he used to geek out on Youtube.

[jiggy2011]

True, something of that magnitude would probably change expectations. But what if you are just a good software developer or something like that?

The policeman example is interesting, what happens in a society where a policeman is trying to be taken seriously and discourage you from some activity you are doing but your glasses automatically recognise his face and say "hey, I see you are being harassed by the police, these naked pictures leaked by his ex-wife might be of use to you".

[politician]

A more useful feature would be for the device to automatically stream video to an off-site location whenever it recognizes a policeman, badge, or vehicle.