This story didn’t make enough sense to really nail the issue. I’m surprised this parable is popular.
Why would you build houses out of wood if the wood is transparent?
It would make more sense if it were discovered years later that the police had special polarizing binoculars that let them see through the wood, which no one knew they had until it was too late and all the old mud huts had been phased out.
Also, describing someone as a “paint technologist” when they are anti-paint is a confusing decision for a parable: a story intended to make a complex issue easier to understand. I initially assumed they were going to have a role analogous to a cryptographer, not an anti-privacy provocateur.
Perhaps having the police attempt to foil insidious flower thieves or dastardly rebel plots to undermine the government controlled potato cartel would also be more in spirit with a parable. The use of awful real life crimes (against children, even) make this a difficult one to share.
Because it's cheap. Because transparency may at times be useful to the owners. Because construction costs are lower. Because it's the fad or fashion. Because building regulations require it. Because of convenience. Because the transparency was an unanticipated side effect. Because it gives houses capabilities previously unattainable. Because the wood-house vendors have driven (by competition, monopolistic methods, patent and IP restrictions, superior lobbying, advertising) all the mud-house vendors out of business. Because ....
A parable is, by definition, metaphoric language. "Mud" and "wood" and "paint" and "tranparency" are metaphors for analogue physicle vs. digital electronic data, crypto, and surveillance.
Why do people choose, or find themselves with no alternative than digital data systems? There are numerous reasons. Many resemble, in some fashion, the list I've given above.
Reading parables overly literally is a category error. All metaphors melt if pushed loudly enough.
Why would you build houses out of wood if the wood is transparent?
It would make more sense if it were discovered years later that the police had special polarizing binoculars that let them see through the wood, which no one knew they had until it was too late and all the old mud huts had been phased out.
Also, describing someone as a “paint technologist” when they are anti-paint is a confusing decision for a parable: a story intended to make a complex issue easier to understand. I initially assumed they were going to have a role analogous to a cryptographer, not an anti-privacy provocateur.
Perhaps having the police attempt to foil insidious flower thieves or dastardly rebel plots to undermine the government controlled potato cartel would also be more in spirit with a parable. The use of awful real life crimes (against children, even) make this a difficult one to share.