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> There is a great deal of both law and precedent against perfect privacy in financial transactions, because of the strong association between such perfect priv
by imagist 10y ago
> There is a great deal of both law and precedent against perfect privacy in financial transactions, because of the strong association between such perfect privacy and criminality, and the very effective cover which the former affords the latter.
This is true, but "this is how we've always done it" is a very poor reason to do something.
The problem with this is that those in power determine what is considered criminal, which is only vaguely correlated with what is unethical enough to be worth criminalizing.
> But it is also a wildly heterodox view not generally sympathetic to those who are not already privacy absolutists or likely to become so, and you may find it worth your while to consider whether this particular hill is the one you want to die on.
If you were actually offering me advice for my own good, I'd take it for what it is. But you aren't. This is just a way of making it sound like privacy is not worth talking about. If you want to make an actual point against privacy I'd be happy to respond to it.
I don't appreciate your advice as advice, because it's clearly ignorant of my actual goals. The thing about mathematically-enforced privacy is that it doesn't have to become the orthodoxy to become effective.
- throwanem 10y agoWhat are your actual goals?
- imagist 10y agoTo be able to buy and sell goods without anyone besides the person I'm buying and selling from knowing about it. Not because I want to do anything illegal, but for the same reason that you shut the door when you use the bathroom, and don't willingly install cameras pointing at your bed that broadcast to the entire internet. I'm not willing to give up my privacy just so governments can avoid doing the police work they're elected to do in order to prosecute crimes, or so corporations can bombard me with their shitty products.
- throwanem 10y agoI don't suppose I really equate what I do with my wallet, and what I do in a bedroom or a bathroom. It's an interesting perspective, though.
- imagist 10y agoWhether or not you equate what you do with your wallet with what you do in a bedroom or a bathroom, it's objectively possible to tell what you do in your bedroom or bathroom from what do do with your wallet in many cases. Condoms, birth control, pregnancy tests, pre-natal vitamins, STD tests, gay literature, sex toys, hemorrhoid cream, etc. all are frequently bought without anonymity, but give a great deal of information about what you're doing in your bedroom and bathroom. Maybe you're so "normal" that you've never bought any of these things, or maybe you're in a position where you wouldn't care if those purchases were made public, but if so, you're actually a pretty rare person.