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The problem: "Nothing to hide" depends on the context. Maybe you don't have anything to hide under the current laws, but what about laws in 20 years from now? M
by WA 10y ago
The problem: "Nothing to hide" depends on the context. Maybe you don't have anything to hide under the current laws, but what about laws in 20 years from now? Maybe times change and suddenly, you've got a lot to hide.
- Kiro 10y agoThis is a non-argument for me but may work for others. I couldn't care less what happens in 20 years. I don't even know if I'm alive then. It may be irrational but I simply don't care.
- mbrock 10y agoThen you're not receptive to any reasoning about future values, which seems sad.
- Kiro 10y agoWhy is it sad? I live in the moment and I'm very happy. I'm not saying everyone should be like me though.
- mbrock 10y agoIt's sad because it seems to treat the entire future as a kind of lost cause, which to me is primally saddening, like nihilism or solipsism.
- Kiro 10y agoNo, that's not what I'm saying. I care about privacy for other peoples' sake and partly for my own. But my own personal future is a non-issue. The future of the world is not.
- sleepychu 10y agoI'm having trouble finding it but the perfect example of this is a census that collected religious affiliation (for innocent statistics) that some brave citizens went to great lengths to destroy when they came under Nazi occupation in order to try and protect Jewish residents.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoWhile an interesting story, I don't think it is as meaningful as people try to make it here. Sure, the census might have helped Nazis quite a lot in committing atrocities. But it doesn't mean the census wasn't genuinely useful, and - more generally - you can't make day-to-day decisions on the assumption that you'll get invaded and conquered by extermination-minded people.
- Chris2048 10y agoAre you allowed to weigh the benefits versus the costs of participating? To whom were the stats "genuinely useful"? You don't need to weigh things against extermination explicitly, just any bad consequence, including political ones.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoYou are basically asking about the usefulness of demography in the society. I think it's pretty easy to imagine plenty of uses. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography
- Chris2048 10y ago> it's pretty easy to imagine plenty of uses To all individuals equally? weighed against individual risk?
- TeMPOraL 10y agoHere are some things people were targeted over in the past: - generic wealth level - generic education level - living in a particular area of the country - disabilities - having small children You could probably find more examples like those if you browse the history of humanity. The point is, you can be targeted over anything, and you can't predict what it will be in advance. The Nazis exterminated members of religious minorities and different sexual orientation, which was somewhat unusual in history. The Soviets killed people with high educational credentials and with lots of wealth. Who knows what the next evil empire will pick as an excuse to murder people? You can't run a society on the assumption it's doomed and everyone will get massacred. That some particular demographical data will be used to select and murder people is a low-probability hypothetical. That it is useful for managing a country right now is a fact. I get one not wanting to be oversharing about oneself, but I don't think that a remote possibility that a piece of demographic data will be used for evil purposes is grounds for ditching censuses altogether. This is not something we should be paranoid about.