New Delhi, Oct. 8 -- Nobody really has privacy anymore. I thought I should find a way to test this hypothesis, but it's futile. After all, some 'effective altruists' of the tech world even want the real world's bugs mapped-for their own good, of course. Imagine waking up with a clunky exoskeleton; it would be impossible to handle a gadget, let alone get online, but equally hard to fall off the grid. Never mind humans, technology has clearly evolved.

My own effort to stay a social-media recluse got crushed by the might of 'network effects,' my will to keep my face off the internet in the fond hope of free speech in old age wilted a decade ago, and my ploys to mask myself for chatbots were foiled by the power of artificial intelligence (AI...