Leviathan is a term coined for the sea monster in the Tanakh or the Old Testament. It is a word that is used contextually for the sea monster. You may be thinking what it has to do in an era of the technologies that emerge even before the predecessor makes its presence. Though the term was coined out by the seafarers, the term came to my attention after reading the book written by Thomas Hobbs. His argument for the necessity of absolute sovereignty emerged in the politically unstable years after the Civil Wars of England, which underlined the existence of unseen Leviathan for a stable society to prevail and equal justice for the equal imposition of taxes.
Yesterday morning I was surprised to see a buzz on my phone. I thought I had kept a reminder and just tried to switch it off. It didn’t go off. I was surprised to understand that it was an alert regarding my upcoming flight that had been preponed by 45 minutes. I was little curious. I checked my mail box and I had accidentally deleted the mail that had come from the booking agency. I called up the agency to confirm and it was confirmed. Wow ! I appreciated the effort Google has done for me. I felt happy and relieved.
On the flight, I started to think about the technology that we are depending on. The phone has been so intelligent to know exactly what we do and where we are and more than that why we are where we are? Isn’t that intrusion of personal life knowingly or unknowingly or can I term it as an information slavery?
The decline of mobile hardware as we had seen with Motorola and Nokia and the emergence of data and IoT(Internet of Things) giants such as Google and Apple IOS, may transform the political landscape too. The news of Apple steam rolling FBI to protect the data privacy laws is still a controversial topic to discuss. But I believe that we have come to an era in which the private enterprises could stand against even the Uncle Sam. But are we acknowledging that there is no data privacy for us when we indiscriminately use our Facebook and Whatsapp?
I look forward to an era in which the borders may vanish and world political powers will be dislodged with the emergence of super data powers. The unequal taxation and the borders will go off-limits and the world would shift to a data constitution, and indirectly a data citizenship. You never know it may be soon that you enlist with super data powers and pay tax so that your civic and social rights are guaranteed!
Am I getting to the society of Hobbesian philosophical system which had its origins in the fear? Hope not.