For around 150 years, our species have been conducting a mass social experiment. And for the last 100 years or so, we've designated this social experiment as being law of the land. I am, of course, referring to the "right to privacy." It was in 1890 where American lawyers Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis had written "The Right to Privacy," published by Harvard Law Review, whereby it stated:

"The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, and man, under the refining influence of culture, has become more sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury."

It was here that the "right to privacy" officially became known as a political right. And yet, throughout the history of our 200,000(+)-year-old species, the concept of privacy was considered somewhat alien to our way of living.

Which isn't to say that no privacy existed at all. For instance, even during our more tribal origins, the need for privacy during our more intimate moments in life was certainly desired. Despite the children living in the same hut as their parents, they would be scolded if they were to watch their parents having sex. But in terms of everyday living, the idea of privacy was far less prevalent.

Fast forward into our modern culture and it's becoming increasingly clear that the social experiment is nearing its end. Today, we live in a panopticon world. During the 20th century, we witnessed the birth of what was known as the surveillance state. In the last 10 years or so, it's transformed into a self-surveillance state, whereby an increasing number of people are opting out of privacy in favor of transparency and technological advantages. And from there, we'll eventually turn into what is known as a sousveillance state. (Read: Charlottesville and the Need for a Sousveillance State)

In 10 years or less, we may very well see the end of privacy as we currently perceive it. With the proliferation of cameras, sensors, and other technological advances, the very idea of privacy will once again be considered somewhat alien. By 2020, there'll be an estimated 1 trillion sensors in operation, from GPS, smart homes, energy harvesting, to biomedical. And by 2022, there'll be an estimated 45 billion cameras in operation, from smartphones, IP, to CCTV.

To help you understand the significance of this, in terms of cameras, we're looking at 6 times more than the total number of our global population today. And in terms of sensors, we're looking at 133 times more than the total number of our global population.

To quote economics theorist Jeremy Rifkin at length:

"While privacy has long been considered a fundamental right, it has never been an inherent right. Indeed, for all of human history, until the modern era, life was lived more or less publicly, as befits the most social species on Earth. As late as the sixteenth century, if an individual was to wander alone aimlessly for long periods of time in daylight, or hide away at night, he or she was likely to be regarded as possessed. In virtually every society that we know of before the modern era, people bathed together in public, often urinated and defecated in public, ate at communal tables, frequently engaged in sexual intimacy in public, and slept huddled together en masse.

It wasn't until the early capitalist era that people began to retreat behind locked doors. The bourgeois life was a private affair. Although people took on a public persona, much of their daily lives were pursued in cloistered spaces. At home, life was further isolated into separate rooms, each with their own function--parlors, music rooms, libraries, etc. Individuals even began to sleep alone in separate beds and bedrooms for the very first time.

The enclosure and privatization of human life went hand-in-hand with the enclosure and privatization of the commons. In the new world of private property relations, where everything was reduced to "mine" versus "thine," the notion of the autonomous agent, surrounded by his or her possessions and fenced off from the rest of the world, took on a life of its own. The right to privacy came to be the right to exclude. The notion that every man's home is his castle accompanied the privatization of life. Successive generations came to think of privacy as an inherent human quality endowed by nature rather than a mere social convention fitting a particular moment in the human journey.

Today, the evolving Internet of Things is ripping away the layers of enclosure that made privacy sacrosanct and a right regarded as important as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For a younger generation growing up in a globally connected world where every moment of their lives are eagerly posted and shared with the world via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and countless other social media sites, privacy has lost much of its appeal. For them, freedom is not bound up in self-contained autonomy and exclusion, but rather, in enjoying access to others and inclusion in a global virtual public square. The moniker of the younger generation is transparency, its modus operandi is collaboration, and its self-expression is exercised by way of peer production in laterally scaled networks."

- Jeremy Rifkin, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, pp. 75-76

The fact of the matter is that privacy, as we currently perceive it, will not survive the emerging future of proliferated cameras, sensors, and the Internet of Things. However, although our exponential march into the world of tomorrow may be a death march for privacy, what we'll get in return will be much more valuable: interconnectedness, transparency, and an end to corruption. The world may finally know peace.

What do you think?