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I don't think it's practical to expect to be forgotten. Archives will save webpages, and mistakes are interesting to science. As tech continues to improve, we

by Taek 10y ago

I don't think it's practical to expect to be forgotten. Archives will save webpages, and mistakes are interesting to science. As tech continues to improve, we will increasingly face a world where there are no secrets. I don't see this as preventable. Everyone has a camera in their pocket, and soon it might be on their face a la Google Glass or Microsoft Holo Lens. Instead we have to learn to live with it. I think that every single person in this thread can think of a dozen things they wouldn't want made public. For each they fear something between judgement and prosecution. The ability to hide those things is disappearing though. My thought is that a cultural shift towards leniency and forgiveness is going to be by far an easier path than enforced privacy. Not that shifting culture is an easy path. But I don't see fighting technology as a battle that can be won. Cameras will be everywhere, streams will be accessible to everyone, and it's all going to be archived and remembered. And not just physical life, but digital life as well.

edblarney 10y ago
"As tech continues to improve, we will increasingly face a world where there are no secrets. I don't see this as preventable" It's absolutely preventable, we just have to make the choice to do that. Of course - there are 'some bits of data' that will get persisted here and there, but by enlarge, there's ways to do this: 1) Policy 2) Common ethics 3) Regulation 4) Architecture 5) Law If it became 'policy' at most companies to address this issue, there are a number of things they could do. If it there was awareness about this - and it was framed as a moral issue, large swaths of organizations might simply make do. Identity/Software/Systems architecture may be able to enable this - i.e. being able to make online transactions without actually identifying oneself. Responsible regulations and responsible law could urge companies to do this. Obvious, it will never be fully thus - but there are a lot of things that we could do. Starting with: any account you open, you should be able to close and have all relevant information erased, unless there is some special requirement otherwise. This is law in some places and it's not entirely unreasonable. If we collectively made the choice we could make the internet 'mostly' a private experience for people.
- wav-part 10y ago
  > ... any account you open, you should be able to close and have all relevant information erased, unless there is some special requirement otherwise. > This is law in some places and it's not entirely unreasonable. Its absolutely unreasonable (eg) for HN. And this is just one form of information processing.
  - edblarney 10y ago
    I don't agree at all. It's neither unreasonable nor entirely impractical from a mechanical perspective once it's thought through a little bit. Because comments are made here effectively anonymously, I don't see the issue, but it's not at all unreasonable that comments could be removed given a mandate.
    - wav-part 10y ago
      Giving every HN user power to delete all his comments will make HN unreadable. To understand a comment, access to all ancestor comments is needed.
      - therealidiot 10y ago
        I don't know, I often encounter [flagged] or whatever it is that happens to bad comments in the middle of a thread. It leaves me wondering what was actually said. So it happens already, just for different reasons...
        DanBC 10y ago
        You can turn on [showdead] in your profile to see flagged comments.
        therealidiot 10y ago
        Ah, I hadn't realised that!
dogma1138 10y ago
What scientific value does a drunk post on your exes facebook wall after a bad breakup exactly has? What value does some hot mic slip of the tongue has? Shift towards forgiveness isn't something you want to strive too it can create a very bad society where there are virtually no social norms or regards towards other human beings since everything has to be forgiven.
- usrusr 10y ago
  > What scientific value does a drunk post on your exes facebook wall after a bad breakup exactly has? More than a historic record consisting only of favorable "truths" worded as carefully as an obituary, because everything else has been erased in a race to spotlessness.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Yes because when contemplating about a person's life what is important is what they wrote on the facebook of their former partner in their 20's.... You do understand that "whitewashing" obituaries isn't for the dead, it's for the living when a person dies most socially adjusted people rather remember the good not the bad. It's not to adjust history in anyone's favor it's to be able to grief in peace.
randallsquared 10y ago
I basically agree with you. > I think that every single person in this thread can think of a dozen things they wouldn't want made public. While privacy is definitely going away as we watch, secrecy is alive and well. For both private and secret data, an unrelated person would have difficulty uncovering the information, but privacy is a public good (people who have no inherent interest in hiding the data have access to it), whereas secrecy is a private good. Those who truly value keeping information about themselves non-public will have to work to keep or make it secret.
k-mcgrady 10y ago
>> "My thought is that a cultural shift towards leniency and forgiveness is going to be by far an easier path than enforced privacy." Things seem to be shifting the other way to me. The internet has given people the ability to enact vigilante justice easier than ever before.

by Taek 10y ago

edblarney 10y ago

"As tech continues to improve, we will increasingly face a world where there are no secrets. I don't see this as preventable" It's absolutely preventable, we just have to make the choice to do that. Of course - there are 'some bits of data' that will get persisted here and there, but by enlarge, there's ways to do this: 1) Policy 2) Common ethics 3) Regulation 4) Architecture 5) Law If it became 'policy' at most companies to address this issue, there are a number of things they could do. If it there was awareness about this - and it was framed as a moral issue, large swaths of organizations might simply make do. Identity/Software/Systems architecture may be able to enable this - i.e. being able to make online transactions without actually identifying oneself. Responsible regulations and responsible law could urge companies to do this. Obvious, it will never be fully thus - but there are a lot of things that we could do. Starting with: any account you open, you should be able to close and have all relevant information erased, unless there is some special requirement otherwise. This is law in some places and it's not entirely unreasonable. If we collectively made the choice we could make the internet 'mostly' a private experience for people.

wav-part 10y ago
> ... any account you open, you should be able to close and have all relevant information erased, unless there is some special requirement otherwise. > This is law in some places and it's not entirely unreasonable. Its absolutely unreasonable (eg) for HN. And this is just one form of information processing.
- edblarney 10y ago
  I don't agree at all. It's neither unreasonable nor entirely impractical from a mechanical perspective once it's thought through a little bit. Because comments are made here effectively anonymously, I don't see the issue, but it's not at all unreasonable that comments could be removed given a mandate.
  - wav-part 10y ago
    Giving every HN user power to delete all his comments will make HN unreadable. To understand a comment, access to all ancestor comments is needed.
    - therealidiot 10y ago
      I don't know, I often encounter [flagged] or whatever it is that happens to bad comments in the middle of a thread. It leaves me wondering what was actually said. So it happens already, just for different reasons...
      - DanBC 10y ago
        You can turn on [showdead] in your profile to see flagged comments.
        therealidiot 10y ago
        Ah, I hadn't realised that!

dogma1138 10y ago

What scientific value does a drunk post on your exes facebook wall after a bad breakup exactly has? What value does some hot mic slip of the tongue has? Shift towards forgiveness isn't something you want to strive too it can create a very bad society where there are virtually no social norms or regards towards other human beings since everything has to be forgiven.

usrusr 10y ago
> What scientific value does a drunk post on your exes facebook wall after a bad breakup exactly has? More than a historic record consisting only of favorable "truths" worded as carefully as an obituary, because everything else has been erased in a race to spotlessness.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Yes because when contemplating about a person's life what is important is what they wrote on the facebook of their former partner in their 20's.... You do understand that "whitewashing" obituaries isn't for the dead, it's for the living when a person dies most socially adjusted people rather remember the good not the bad. It's not to adjust history in anyone's favor it's to be able to grief in peace.

randallsquared 10y ago

I basically agree with you. > I think that every single person in this thread can think of a dozen things they wouldn't want made public. While privacy is definitely going away as we watch, secrecy is alive and well. For both private and secret data, an unrelated person would have difficulty uncovering the information, but privacy is a public good (people who have no inherent interest in hiding the data have access to it), whereas secrecy is a private good. Those who truly value keeping information about themselves non-public will have to work to keep or make it secret.

k-mcgrady 10y ago

>> "My thought is that a cultural shift towards leniency and forgiveness is going to be by far an easier path than enforced privacy." Things seem to be shifting the other way to me. The internet has given people the ability to enact vigilante justice easier than ever before.