Eric Schmidt says we’re just afraid of change
Hardware
According to this article in Xconomy, Google’s Eric Schmidt had this to say to people like me who dare to explore the privacy implications of Google Glass:
“Our goal is to make the world better. We’ll take the criticism along the way, but criticisms are inevitably from people who are afraid of change or who have not figured out that there will be an adaptation of society to it”
So they want to make the world better, by being patronising to people with legitimate privacy concerns.
This is disturbing trend, harking back to Scott McNealy in the 1990s. I blogged a few weeks ago about Robert Scoble crudly dismissing Om Malik’s concerns about Facebook Home. Google have really honed their technique over the years, even by going as far as framing (hah!) the debate on Google Glass as whether you look more macho using it than a smartphone. Oh please.
The good news is: you can defeat this by simply continuing the discussion.
There are amazing, fun, enabling new technologies out there that will push the world forward in ways we can’t entirely see or understand yet. It’s exciting. It doesn’t also mean we should sit down, shut up and lap it all up without also considering the broader implications.
As I always say, never trust those who tell you to stop thinking.
