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Aside from the rather obvious issues of accuracy in the related anecdotes (as coldtea pointed out), it's a shame that the author of this piece doesn't mention o

Aside from the rather obvious issues of accuracy in the related anecdotes (as coldtea pointed out), it's a shame that the author of this piece doesn't mention one aspect in which the rise-and-fall nature is not a full circle: although in a tribal society you may have less privacy, there is also less reason to fear a lack of it. Unlike small, homogeneous groups with intimate hierarchies, modern society is huge, the data available on your life is enormous, and the ability of someone to hurt you with that data (be it through impersonation or accusation) or indeed you to hurt someone else is virtually unlimited. There's no discussion of the ways in which the potential consequences of the violation of privacy make us more protective of it ("The Lives of Others" is a great film on the subject). Maybe at some point we can achieve a society where the power structures and human relationships are such that we can again be as open again with strangers as we once were with our immediate families/communities, and in so doing relax about the need for strict rights of privacy. But right now the stakes are too high.

bryanlarsen 11y ago
In a small community, when one person knows something, everybody knows it. One rumour, one false accusation and suddenly literally everybody you interact with knows and can judge you for it. I'd far prefer a lack of privacy in a large community than a small one.
- exo762 11y ago
  I disagree. In small group all people who can judge you interact with you on every day basis and they KNOW you. Also, they have all reasons to believe that "Do to others as you would have them do to you" actually works, since judges themselves are not hidden from judgement. The Internet, however, creates illusion of anonymity and turns people into assholes. On Internet twitter/tumblr/[insert social network] will rip you to pieces for a wrong shirt.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    rip you to pieces for a wrong shirt Oh, there's plenty of small communities that will do that as well. Wrong football shirt, for example.
  - ferenstein 11y ago
    i tend to agree with this assessment. I think i fear people I know more than those i don't, which is why lack of privacy in small communities seems all the more worrisome. Yet, there was little and folks seemed to be OK
- _petronius 11y ago
  A good embodiement of that is the concept of Jante Law[0]. And I'm not arguing for a return to hunter-gatherer scale communities. Just saying that the stakes have changed, and that we require privacy for reasons that didn't exist before (even if there were other reasons in the past why privacy might also have been desirable then.) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
- taurath 11y ago
  Except in this community, there is no simply leaving it if it no longer works for you.
compactmani 11y ago
This is an interesting point. I actually view privacy efforts circa 2015 as attempts to bring information leakage back to small community (tribe-like) proportions. I.e. my personal information is at risk of leaking to at most a handful of perpetually core individuals in my life. That said, the precision medicine issue of the article is an interesting one. Under an ideal health privacy model, a patient would securely store and maintain their own medical records. When they visit a physician, they would bring the records which would allow the physician to make a diagnosis and update the records for later reference. This would make precision medicine unrealistic (as I see it) because there would simply be no populations to study. Finally, I'll add that this is HN, and I suspect a large proportion of us want privacy for no reason other than to stick it corporations and governments. To which I am fully supportive.
superuser2 11y ago
In those communities, the whole town would gather to watch the execution by torture of those who were caught being gay, atheist, heretics, "witches," etc. The tight-knit communities of the past were nightmares for those who deviated from norms.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

In a small community, when one person knows something, everybody knows it. One rumour, one false accusation and suddenly literally everybody you interact with knows and can judge you for it. I'd far prefer a lack of privacy in a large community than a small one.

exo762 11y ago
I disagree. In small group all people who can judge you interact with you on every day basis and they KNOW you. Also, they have all reasons to believe that "Do to others as you would have them do to you" actually works, since judges themselves are not hidden from judgement. The Internet, however, creates illusion of anonymity and turns people into assholes. On Internet twitter/tumblr/[insert social network] will rip you to pieces for a wrong shirt.
- pjc50 11y ago
  rip you to pieces for a wrong shirt Oh, there's plenty of small communities that will do that as well. Wrong football shirt, for example.
- ferenstein 11y ago
  i tend to agree with this assessment. I think i fear people I know more than those i don't, which is why lack of privacy in small communities seems all the more worrisome. Yet, there was little and folks seemed to be OK
_petronius 11y ago
A good embodiement of that is the concept of Jante Law[0]. And I'm not arguing for a return to hunter-gatherer scale communities. Just saying that the stakes have changed, and that we require privacy for reasons that didn't exist before (even if there were other reasons in the past why privacy might also have been desirable then.) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
taurath 11y ago
Except in this community, there is no simply leaving it if it no longer works for you.

compactmani 11y ago

This is an interesting point. I actually view privacy efforts circa 2015 as attempts to bring information leakage back to small community (tribe-like) proportions. I.e. my personal information is at risk of leaking to at most a handful of perpetually core individuals in my life. That said, the precision medicine issue of the article is an interesting one. Under an ideal health privacy model, a patient would securely store and maintain their own medical records. When they visit a physician, they would bring the records which would allow the physician to make a diagnosis and update the records for later reference. This would make precision medicine unrealistic (as I see it) because there would simply be no populations to study. Finally, I'll add that this is HN, and I suspect a large proportion of us want privacy for no reason other than to stick it corporations and governments. To which I am fully supportive.

superuser2 11y ago

In those communities, the whole town would gather to watch the execution by torture of those who were caught being gay, atheist, heretics, "witches," etc. The tight-knit communities of the past were nightmares for those who deviated from norms.