# The Promising End of Security By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2024-08-08 What is security? More importantly, why does it exist? Generally, security is the means to protect something in one's possession. Security is locking your doors to keep people from stealing your TV or having a password to keep people from gaining knowledge of one's email messages. Security has existed long before humans existed. As soon as life emerged, natural biological barriers were developed, environmental territories were protected, and mates were fiercely defended. Security is a crucial feature of life. It may be the defining feature as it implies one possesses something, and life ceases if possessions are not delineated. Without "cell walls," chemicals would endlessly float around the ocean. Cell walls are security that creates life. So, obsession with security seems only natural. However, there are at least two levels of security. One is the elemental building block of life, and the other is created by human consciousness. One cannot avoid the first form of security if one wishes to exist. It is required to live. However, the second form of security created by our thoughts is not a requirement but a social construction emerging from hierarchies and power dynamics. As most of our physical life needs are secure, the security mechanism programmed into us has focused on securing our position in the social hierarchy by obscuring our thoughts and feelings to conform. We spend massive amounts of time and energy learning how to behave in acceptable ways and not necessarily ways one might be inclined to act. Of course, this is part of the cost of social life and progress. If one wants to go around killing others, it's probably best to disincentivize this instinct. However, these are primarily the edge cases in a healthy society, no matter what the news and politicians say. They are serious matters to be dealt with, but is it more effective to persuade one to secure their thoughts and hope to keep them suppressed or to be open and remove the security so they can be dealt with at a fundamental level? If one says one has anti-social tendencies, one will likely be quickly relegated in society or locked up. If one says one desires power and to challenge the status quo, the establishment will soon relegate and outcast them from society. Meanwhile, what thoughts are rolling around in everyone else's head? What are they emailing people about? It's a risky business in today's social operating paradigm. So, we lock it all down and obscure it as much as possible. But here comes technology to the rescue. As we post more things online, communicate instantaneously with anyone, and connect everything to everyone, the security of who one is will evaporate into nothingness. As forecasted by Alan Watts and others, privacy and security of who one is will cease to exist as communication edges ever closer to our immediate thoughts. It is hard for most to envision this world because it departs from our natural programming and social paradigm. But it represents the ultimate solidarity and progress towards authentic coexistence. Security is necessary to live, but it is largely detrimental to overcoming our time's most significant pragmatic challenges. This is why we keep developing more and better communication strategies and why it has defined the last 150 years. It's only a matter of time until the inefficiency of security is removed, and one is free to be authentic and self-aware via the connection to the multitudes of others who struggle just as one does. #### Related Items [[Security]] [[Progress]] [[Solidarity]] [[Life]] [[Society]] [[Hierarchy]] [[Communication]] [[Technology]] [[Authenticity]]