the darknet

I heard people were buying drugs and other illegal stuff on the internet but as usual I did not believe them so I had to have a look by myself. I m not describing the steps to browse into the darkweb since they are easy to find on so many websites. With the right tools and help from some online instructions I got there. So what s there? There are a lot of things, illegal stuff (drugs, uk passports, etc) which I still think that are fake, political websites which have to remain anonymous in some countries, etc... this was not a big deal until I told my friends and hear their reactions: "Will the police visit you?" "These days it is not a good idea to go there"....

I must be honest, I never had privacy concerns. I gave all my data to Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, the book store, the supermarket, etc. (because I have "nothing to hide") so at this moment they might know more about me than myself. But today, I remembered "1984" where people had no freedom to speak, do or even think... so I asked myself the following questions: Did we already agree the government (or whoever) to spy on our private lives? Are we so scared of not following the pattern even if we are not doing anything illegal? How far are we from 1984? Are you reading this on a "telescreen"? So, after all this, ... should I encrypt my digital life to get back the scraps of my privacy that are still left?