While this may sound weird under /c/privacy, it captures what I also feel at the heart of privacy in society — sustainable of diverse individual perspectives. When surveillance succeeds in shaping our thoughts and hence actions, we end up with centralized ways of thinking. 3 billion internet users but perhaps only 3 million different perspectives (and increasingly narrowing down). Lack of social diversity weakens social capacity to fight back against social threats.
Genetic diversity gives species the tools to tackle new challenges such as disease or a changing climate. The uniformity of macadamia orchards leaves cultivated trees vulnerable. In contrast, wild macadamias are very genetically diverse, so protecting wild trees is critical to the survival of the species, she says.
bananas also aren’t genetically diverse, all the bananas you can buy at the supermarket are genetic clones.
there are plantanes though.
yeah, that’s what immediately came to my mind, there’s also now a fungus called Panama disease that is rapidly infecting banana plantations
and because only a single variety is cultivated in such huge quantities it’s now a huge issue
Exactly. And this shows the difference between biological and social evolution mechanisms. Biological is physical (material reality of plants being genetically similar). Social evolution mechanism involves ideas + material base (bodies). It may help us understand why increasing number of people using the Internet may in practice reduce social diversity IF the ideas are centralized.