I'd like to give this some thought actually. For now here's an observation. Situations which produces large amounts of "externalities" seem to produce this str

I'd like to give this some thought actually. For now here's an observation. Situations which produces large amounts of "externalities" seem to produce this strange scenario where we fight against potential nightmare scenarios. Externalities being defined as something that occurs as a result of the new process outside the expected system. Global warming from burning fossil fuels or secondhand smoke are prime examples although easier to think about because the outcomes are tangible. This brings up the question, "How do we handle this thing that effects people on a large scale?" It's useful to ask, "What's the worst outcome of this we can imagine" which might be along the lines of 1984. Terrifying because the government is normally the vehicle that is used to regulate large amounts of externalities and data collection could provide it with a large amount of power, something that the government often desires. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the government started to abuse this power very quickly and in secret; although to a lesser extent than 1984. It's limited largely by technology (which is improving at a rapid rate). How we deal with this problem now may help us avoid this dystopian situation once the technology catches up. On the other hand, we also have to look at what we get in exchange. Burning fossil fuels is so essential that maybe it's worth raising the temperature of the earth until we can develop something better. Or maybe it's just a large exercise in game theory. In the case of data collection we get a few extremely convenient services (search, automation, etc.) in exchange for lack of privacy in nearly all forms and the systems that are abstracted above us (businesses, government, economy, etc.) are shifted towards optimizing for their respective interests using the information they can glean from the collected data. These systems become arguably more efficient more powerful. These conversations effectively shape how we handle the new thing and are overall good. Privacy (and the effects of privacy) isn't really an easily quantifiable thing, but it does appear to be something that people think is worth having. The end result is most likely to be somewhere in the middle of the road; we can burn fossil fuels, but there are certain standards on the emissions to limit the externalities. So where exactly is the tradeoff "worth it"? It's different for everybody. For me, I think all my data that is seemingly private for me (I wouldn't let my friends read my email / texts; if it's a file in a password protected account) should be encrypted and impossible for anyone outside of that conversation to access; currently this is not the case. Facebook is a bit of a grey area because people seem to use it as if it was private and the friends feature implies that it is, but the reality is that it is not. All of this falls apart completely when everything we previously assumed was private is clearly not when it comes to organizations such as the NSA which is an organization that provides a very questionable amount of value.