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Technology increasingly exposes the superficial nature of concepts like privacy and security. In nature, these things simply do not exist. They are also complet

Technology increasingly exposes the superficial nature of concepts like privacy and security. In nature, these things simply do not exist. They are also completely non-essential to human well-being. Our emotional attachment to such concepts is not doing us any favours. Also, you can't be rooting for transparency AND privacy at the same time. You have to give up on one of these, and when you think about it, you have to conclude that the losing idea is that of "privacy".

jdimov10 10y ago
Yes, I fully understand that I am the ONLY anti-privacy advocate on HN. I accept all of your downvotes and hold no grudges :) But you are all wrong.
- hack_edu 10y ago
  > Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. > Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or announce that you expect to get downvoted. Consider the guidelines regarding worthwhile contributions next time, please. :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - jdimov10 10y ago
    My comments are anything but boring.
    - LunaSea 10y ago
      Could you please give me your full name and address? Providing the information publicly shouldn't be an issue since you don't believe in the concept of privacy.
      - jdimov10 10y ago
        My full name and address are already publicly available in countless places, if you had any legitimate interest you should have been able to find them in less time than it took you to write that comment. Btw., so are yours.
        LunaSea 10y ago
        Sure I don't pretend that that mine are no accessible but this is most of the time a conscious choice. I still have privacy but I just choose what information I make public. Also for example my address is probably nowhere public because I didn't choose to publish it.
        jdimov10 10y ago
        All I'm saying is, sure, privacy is comfortable and we are fond of it and we all have our insecurities, BUT... it's going away, whether we like that or not. And really, it never actually did exist. But that's okay because we should still be able to get along just fine without it (to the extent that any people on Earth ever did get along...) Moreover, I feel that we would actually be better off and able to move forward faster by giving up on concepts like privacy and security.
        LunaSea 10y ago
        What do you mean by "giving up concepts like security". Should banks get rid of vaults and stack money on the street curbs?
    - hack_edu 10y ago
      Though you are whining about downvotes. To such an extent that you comment on your own post exclusively regarding the subject.
    - sambalbadjak 10y ago
      Did you read any philosophical paper on this issue? I'm interested in reading more about your view.
jernfrost 10y ago
I disagree, I think you can strike a balance between privacy and transparency. Sometimes they strengthen each other. I am from Norway, and I've lived in the US, and I would say that in many cases both privacy and transparency is stronger in Norway. E.g. in the US my credit history is inaccessible to me. I don't know who is accessing it. Yet this information is shared willy nilly with other businesses. So there is neither transparency on its usage nor privacy for me. In contrasts in Norway, by law, it is far more restricted what the credit card companies can record about me. Whenever somebody requests information about me, by law I have to be sent exactly the same information. This provides both increased privacy and transparency. I get to know who is trying to find out stuff about me, and I got control over what sort of information is shared about me. If what is being sent out looks wrong I can contact the credit card companies and inform them about that. Likewise you can look up anybody's tax returns in Norway. You can't look at the details however. But it is a great tool for transparency in that it allows you to check if e.g. government officials or others have way more income than they should be having. However whenever you request this information, people having those tax returns will be informed that you requested that information. This helps protect your privacy as you can't look at the neighbors tax returns without looking rather stupid and nosy.
drdeca 10y ago
Some Reasoning: a) Even if all information about every person is publicly accessible, none of us will know everything about all of us (Us being humanity). Some things about some people would be known by more people. For example, more people would know that the president is the president than whether I got a haircut any given day. Indeed, more people would know that the president exists than would know that I exist. There is a limited amount of attention, and not enough to give attention to everything, so some things must have more attention on them than others. b) Negative attention can harm someone. Harassment hurts. c) having information about someone can make it easier to focus the attention of others on that person, including negative attention. This is true even when the people whose attention is in question already could have accessed the information beforehand, but haven't. Perhaps even especially true. Conclusion) Having all information available about all persons makes it easier for those who can direct people's attention to direct negative attention against those who they wish to do so against, and therefore increases their ability to harm those people, and therefore increases their power over them. So a total lack of privacy makes those with power over attention more powerful.

jdimov10 10y ago

Yes, I fully understand that I am the ONLY anti-privacy advocate on HN. I accept all of your downvotes and hold no grudges :) But you are all wrong.

hack_edu 10y ago
> Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. > Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or announce that you expect to get downvoted. Consider the guidelines regarding worthwhile contributions next time, please. :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jdimov10 10y ago
  My comments are anything but boring.
  - LunaSea 10y ago
    Could you please give me your full name and address? Providing the information publicly shouldn't be an issue since you don't believe in the concept of privacy.
    - jdimov10 10y ago
      My full name and address are already publicly available in countless places, if you had any legitimate interest you should have been able to find them in less time than it took you to write that comment. Btw., so are yours.
      - LunaSea 10y ago
        Sure I don't pretend that that mine are no accessible but this is most of the time a conscious choice. I still have privacy but I just choose what information I make public. Also for example my address is probably nowhere public because I didn't choose to publish it.
        jdimov10 10y ago
        All I'm saying is, sure, privacy is comfortable and we are fond of it and we all have our insecurities, BUT... it's going away, whether we like that or not. And really, it never actually did exist. But that's okay because we should still be able to get along just fine without it (to the extent that any people on Earth ever did get along...) Moreover, I feel that we would actually be better off and able to move forward faster by giving up on concepts like privacy and security.
        LunaSea 10y ago
        What do you mean by "giving up concepts like security". Should banks get rid of vaults and stack money on the street curbs?
  - hack_edu 10y ago
    Though you are whining about downvotes. To such an extent that you comment on your own post exclusively regarding the subject.
  - sambalbadjak 10y ago
    Did you read any philosophical paper on this issue? I'm interested in reading more about your view.

jernfrost 10y ago

I disagree, I think you can strike a balance between privacy and transparency. Sometimes they strengthen each other. I am from Norway, and I've lived in the US, and I would say that in many cases both privacy and transparency is stronger in Norway. E.g. in the US my credit history is inaccessible to me. I don't know who is accessing it. Yet this information is shared willy nilly with other businesses. So there is neither transparency on its usage nor privacy for me. In contrasts in Norway, by law, it is far more restricted what the credit card companies can record about me. Whenever somebody requests information about me, by law I have to be sent exactly the same information. This provides both increased privacy and transparency. I get to know who is trying to find out stuff about me, and I got control over what sort of information is shared about me. If what is being sent out looks wrong I can contact the credit card companies and inform them about that. Likewise you can look up anybody's tax returns in Norway. You can't look at the details however. But it is a great tool for transparency in that it allows you to check if e.g. government officials or others have way more income than they should be having. However whenever you request this information, people having those tax returns will be informed that you requested that information. This helps protect your privacy as you can't look at the neighbors tax returns without looking rather stupid and nosy.

drdeca 10y ago

Some Reasoning: a) Even if all information about every person is publicly accessible, none of us will know everything about all of us (Us being humanity). Some things about some people would be known by more people. For example, more people would know that the president is the president than whether I got a haircut any given day. Indeed, more people would know that the president exists than would know that I exist. There is a limited amount of attention, and not enough to give attention to everything, so some things must have more attention on them than others. b) Negative attention can harm someone. Harassment hurts. c) having information about someone can make it easier to focus the attention of others on that person, including negative attention. This is true even when the people whose attention is in question already could have accessed the information beforehand, but haven't. Perhaps even especially true. Conclusion) Having all information available about all persons makes it easier for those who can direct people's attention to direct negative attention against those who they wish to do so against, and therefore increases their ability to harm those people, and therefore increases their power over them. So a total lack of privacy makes those with power over attention more powerful.