Google maps has a new function called Street View which allows people to see the view from the street of certain major cities. I can only imagine it’s a question of time before more and more cities have this option. These kinds of developments tend to raise mixed emotions. On the one hand, it’s fantastically exciting to have this amount of information at our fingertips. On the other, one does wonder if this camera thing is getting a bit out of hand.
One of the things I’ve always admired about Vaclav Havel is how he made it so clear in his acceptance speech as President of Czechoslovakia that everyone in the country had to take responsibility for the state of their country. In a horribly truncated paraphrase, we could say that Big Brother was everybody. Whether that thought is soothing or not in knowing that satellites and digital cameras are photographing every last inch of the western world I leave up to you.
Jonathan Smith
