5 ms·

This has been said over and over and over again. Privacy is irrational, a response to fear. Why model a future after a fear?

DominikR 11y ago
Then you are probably one of the very few persons that considers it normal to copulate regularly in the public.
- miguelrochefort 11y ago
  All animals, except humans, do.
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    This isn't even slightly true. Some animals will have sex in public; some won't as long as they feel they're being observed. Humans, obviously, fall into the second category, but we're quite far from being alone there.
    - Tharkun 11y ago
      What do you base this assumption on? Not only do, literally, thousands of people enjoy sex in public, but it was impossible to have sex in private before people got big houses with separate bedrooms.
      - Jtsummers 11y ago
        Houses and bedrooms are hardly necessary for private sex. You don't even need buildings. Just space or cover and careful (or not so careful) timing.
  - adventured 11y ago
    That's of course incorrect. Many species mate in private for security purposes, including building up elaborate territorial systems to enhance that security. Many species of cats and birds do so for example. I also don't think you understand at all why humans have sex in private. Hint: it's primarily for security purposes. In the animal kingdom, in the more frequently compared species to humans - chimps, gorillas, etc - weaker males are often murdered or otherwise prevented from mating, mating is by force and not consensual, it's ruled by the most dominate males. The dominant males breed at a drastically higher rate than the weak males. Is that how you want to compete as a human, by your capability to deliver violence? How do you think that will work out in practice for most men and most women today? Have you ever seen what happens to women in a violent or agitated crowd in some more dangerous parts of the world - and how do you think sex in that same crowd, or any crowd, would turn out? Turns out security is an excellent reason for having sex in private. http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/1567/why-do-humans-have-sex-in-private http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/1567/why-do-humans...
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
    Oh, thank you for opening my eyes! I'll start defecating in the streets and stop showering right away! BTW: Hygiene is a fear reaction (kindof, but in any case not less so than privacy). Fear of infections! It's totally irrational!
    - wutbrodo 11y ago
      > Oh, thank you for opening my eyes! I'll start defecating in the streets and stop showering right away! Yeesh, what is it about this topic that is making everyone act like such an assholes? There's no harm in dismissing a politely-stated assertion that you find bizarre without being a dick about it.
      - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
        Strawmaning is not polite. It's not that it's bizarre, it's when you should (a) easily be able to recognize that your argument is misrepresenting the other's position (and thus not actually addressing their position at all) and (b) you also should be able to easily figure out how to refute your "argument" yourself, but you throw it out without addressing obvious objections at all, effectively leaving the effort to work out your own argument to your opponent, that I (and I suppose others) react impolitely.
tbrownaw 11y ago
...is irrational, a response to fear. You do realize that fear isn't always (or even usually) irrational, right?
- miguelrochefort 11y ago
  I do realize that. What if a person is afraid of guns. Would the solution be for the government to subsidize body armors?
  - tbrownaw 11y ago
    I have no idea what you're trying to get at here.
jnbiche 11y ago
Then I'm sure you'll be happy to post your tax returns here, right?
- miguelrochefort 11y ago
  I don't have tax returns.
  - jnbiche 11y ago
    You don't pay taxes?
AlexandrB 11y ago
Privacy is about control of personal information - who get's to see what. I think we should model a future where individuals are empowered to control their lives and their information instead of ceding control to governments and corporations.
- miguelrochefort 11y ago
  Are you suggesting people should own information? That seems backward at best.
  - AlexandrB 11y ago
    I'm suggesting people should be able to control who gets to see which information about them. This is not at all unlike NDAs and other intellectual property agreements that people enter into. You're right that this implies ownership, but by this definition people & corporations "own" information all the time - it's called patents and copyright.
    - miguelrochefort 11y ago
      I see. You're one of those people who don't have an issue with the very idea of copyright and patents.
      - tbrownaw 11y ago
        I do have a problem with them, and still mostly agree with gp.
      - spdustin 11y ago
        I've noticed you doing this over and over; you extrapolate an impossibly generalized statement from a user, inferring details which were not implied or explicitly stated. He made no such opinion statement on copyrights or patents. Your views on privacy have been questioned ad nauseum on HN, and your replies frequently do not address the very real concern that people raise: the misuse of "private" information by those in authority. Or, if you do, it's a very hand-wavy statement to the effect of "if information was freely available to anyone, that power wouldn't be a big deal". It's simply not a response that addresses the facts: the concern by those with a desire to protect their privacy stems from their "private" information being used by someone in a position to do physical, economical or psychological harm to them. You've never addressed that, that I can see. Your government, unless you are the sole government of your own little island somewhere, is in a position to harm you. They give a vanishingly small number of fucks about your life as an individual, and wouldn't bat an eye at taking your "private" information out of context and using it to disrupt your life if it suits their needs. I know statements like mine will never convince you that your perception of how the real world works is quite different from its realities; I do not make them to convince you. I appreciate the seed of hope for the future that you believe you're sowing by arguing your point on HN, and it would be an amazing place to live. Given, however, the ways in which the human condition manifests itself in a society where there are people with power over others - no matter where that power comes from - that world is a fiction. In our reality, we lowly citizens have few advantages over the powerful few, and until the human condition evolves to allow a Gene Roddenberry-esque utopian society to form on Earth, the right to privacy will always be sacred to those of us who want to have some semblance of control over our future.

DominikR 11y ago

Then you are probably one of the very few persons that considers it normal to copulate regularly in the public.

miguelrochefort 11y ago
All animals, except humans, do.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  This isn't even slightly true. Some animals will have sex in public; some won't as long as they feel they're being observed. Humans, obviously, fall into the second category, but we're quite far from being alone there.
  - Tharkun 11y ago
    What do you base this assumption on? Not only do, literally, thousands of people enjoy sex in public, but it was impossible to have sex in private before people got big houses with separate bedrooms.
    - Jtsummers 11y ago
      Houses and bedrooms are hardly necessary for private sex. You don't even need buildings. Just space or cover and careful (or not so careful) timing.
- adventured 11y ago
  That's of course incorrect. Many species mate in private for security purposes, including building up elaborate territorial systems to enhance that security. Many species of cats and birds do so for example. I also don't think you understand at all why humans have sex in private. Hint: it's primarily for security purposes. In the animal kingdom, in the more frequently compared species to humans - chimps, gorillas, etc - weaker males are often murdered or otherwise prevented from mating, mating is by force and not consensual, it's ruled by the most dominate males. The dominant males breed at a drastically higher rate than the weak males. Is that how you want to compete as a human, by your capability to deliver violence? How do you think that will work out in practice for most men and most women today? Have you ever seen what happens to women in a violent or agitated crowd in some more dangerous parts of the world - and how do you think sex in that same crowd, or any crowd, would turn out? Turns out security is an excellent reason for having sex in private. http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/1567/why-do-humans-have-sex-in-private http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/1567/why-do-humans...
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
  Oh, thank you for opening my eyes! I'll start defecating in the streets and stop showering right away! BTW: Hygiene is a fear reaction (kindof, but in any case not less so than privacy). Fear of infections! It's totally irrational!
  - wutbrodo 11y ago
    > Oh, thank you for opening my eyes! I'll start defecating in the streets and stop showering right away! Yeesh, what is it about this topic that is making everyone act like such an assholes? There's no harm in dismissing a politely-stated assertion that you find bizarre without being a dick about it.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 11y ago
      Strawmaning is not polite. It's not that it's bizarre, it's when you should (a) easily be able to recognize that your argument is misrepresenting the other's position (and thus not actually addressing their position at all) and (b) you also should be able to easily figure out how to refute your "argument" yourself, but you throw it out without addressing obvious objections at all, effectively leaving the effort to work out your own argument to your opponent, that I (and I suppose others) react impolitely.

tbrownaw 11y ago

...is irrational, a response to fear. You do realize that fear isn't always (or even usually) irrational, right?

miguelrochefort 11y ago
I do realize that. What if a person is afraid of guns. Would the solution be for the government to subsidize body armors?
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  I have no idea what you're trying to get at here.

jnbiche 11y ago

Then I'm sure you'll be happy to post your tax returns here, right?

miguelrochefort 11y ago
I don't have tax returns.
- jnbiche 11y ago
  You don't pay taxes?

AlexandrB 11y ago

Privacy is about control of personal information - who get's to see what. I think we should model a future where individuals are empowered to control their lives and their information instead of ceding control to governments and corporations.

miguelrochefort 11y ago
Are you suggesting people should own information? That seems backward at best.
- AlexandrB 11y ago
  I'm suggesting people should be able to control who gets to see which information about them. This is not at all unlike NDAs and other intellectual property agreements that people enter into. You're right that this implies ownership, but by this definition people & corporations "own" information all the time - it's called patents and copyright.
  - miguelrochefort 11y ago
    I see. You're one of those people who don't have an issue with the very idea of copyright and patents.
    - tbrownaw 11y ago
      I do have a problem with them, and still mostly agree with gp.
    - spdustin 11y ago
      I've noticed you doing this over and over; you extrapolate an impossibly generalized statement from a user, inferring details which were not implied or explicitly stated. He made no such opinion statement on copyrights or patents. Your views on privacy have been questioned ad nauseum on HN, and your replies frequently do not address the very real concern that people raise: the misuse of "private" information by those in authority. Or, if you do, it's a very hand-wavy statement to the effect of "if information was freely available to anyone, that power wouldn't be a big deal". It's simply not a response that addresses the facts: the concern by those with a desire to protect their privacy stems from their "private" information being used by someone in a position to do physical, economical or psychological harm to them. You've never addressed that, that I can see. Your government, unless you are the sole government of your own little island somewhere, is in a position to harm you. They give a vanishingly small number of fucks about your life as an individual, and wouldn't bat an eye at taking your "private" information out of context and using it to disrupt your life if it suits their needs. I know statements like mine will never convince you that your perception of how the real world works is quite different from its realities; I do not make them to convince you. I appreciate the seed of hope for the future that you believe you're sowing by arguing your point on HN, and it would be an amazing place to live. Given, however, the ways in which the human condition manifests itself in a society where there are people with power over others - no matter where that power comes from - that world is a fiction. In our reality, we lowly citizens have few advantages over the powerful few, and until the human condition evolves to allow a Gene Roddenberry-esque utopian society to form on Earth, the right to privacy will always be sacred to those of us who want to have some semblance of control over our future.