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> Undesirable for most, harmful for many, and lethal for some. As I said, there is work to do before we can go fully transparent. It will ultimately be harmful

> Undesirable for most, harmful for many, and lethal for some. As I said, there is work to do before we can go fully transparent. It will ultimately be harmful only to those who deserve it. > Should my medical records be open to anyone? My banking statements? My sexual preferences and fantasies? That's absurd. Yes. Yes. Yes. Why do you assume that's absurd? Why do you insist on keeping secrets? The world would be a lot better if all those things were communicated publicly. > In some less enlightened jurisdictions some of these will get you executed or lynched (ask any gay person in a Muslim country, or anyone critical of their government in a repressive regime). That's a problem that will only get worse as privacy is maintained. Privacy skews our perception of reality and makes people/government think that some ideas/flaws/actions/crimes are rare when the reality is that most people are able to conceal them. Those who get caught suffer from exaggerated punishment that's only sustained through the ability of others to hide. The democratization of privacy is not the solution to this problem. > Yet I might want to chat about some topics with like minded individuals (again, assume for the sake of argument that all of it is legal in my jurisdiction) under a pseudonym or anonymity; the internet is a wonderful place where this is possible — partly because I'm not doing everything through one megacorp's 'app'. I'd like to keep it that way. Anonymity is overrated. It's only good at restricting details that could otherwise become a distraction, as a way to focus on content rather than form. This can be achieved through other means that don't restrict access to information or make a person believe their reputation is immune to bad actions. Again, the only reason you want privacy and anonymity is because it's the norm, not because it's best. I have never implied that such an "app" would be owned by a mega corporation. It will be fully open (again, transparent), free and distributed. > We standardise where necessary for mutual benefit and cooperation (e.g., HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; Unicode; or accessibility standards), and often we will imitate or copy what works (e.g., the 'hamburger menu', or sensible typography) but that doesn't mean every site or service or application should look the same and connect to the same set of identity providers. These standards, while better than nothing, are mediocre at best. They're also very low-level. I don't want my grandmother to program in HTML/CSS/JS. > You present a very radical viewpoint, and I applaud you for your fervour, but I suspect you are either very young, not a developer, or you haven't experienced the downside of the monopolistic behaviour of the world's Apples, Googles, and Microsofts yet. I'm 25. I'm a developer. I fully appreciate the limitations of Google/Apple/Microsoft, hence my request to make something different.

Freak_NL 10y ago
> Yes. Yes. Yes. Why do you assume that's absurd? Why do you insist on keeping secrets? The world would be a lot better if all those things were communicated publicly. It is not absurd as a thought experiment, merely impossible to implement without sacrificing one of the defining aspects of our (global) culture. I won't rehash the many arguments fore and against the idea of total transparency — I'll leave that to the science fiction writers and activists — but the concept of privacy is so fundamental to our concept of self that I cannot imagine that people in a society without privacy would be happier. Personal opinion aside, your view is so radical, that the adoption of a technical solution such as the one you propose won't happen until the notion of total transparency gains more adherents. To do so you would have to come up with convincing answers to the (many!) arguments posited against the notion of total transparency; often formulated as the if you've got nothing to hide fallacy — which I believe applies here. We'll be very old or dead by the time society has shifted that far from its current believe in privacy — then you can start working on a technical solution (this may answer your initial question).

Freak_NL 10y ago

> Yes. Yes. Yes. Why do you assume that's absurd? Why do you insist on keeping secrets? The world would be a lot better if all those things were communicated publicly. It is not absurd as a thought experiment, merely impossible to implement without sacrificing one of the defining aspects of our (global) culture. I won't rehash the many arguments fore and against the idea of total transparency — I'll leave that to the science fiction writers and activists — but the concept of privacy is so fundamental to our concept of self that I cannot imagine that people in a society without privacy would be happier. Personal opinion aside, your view is so radical, that the adoption of a technical solution such as the one you propose won't happen until the notion of total transparency gains more adherents. To do so you would have to come up with convincing answers to the (many!) arguments posited against the notion of total transparency; often formulated as the if you've got nothing to hide fallacy — which I believe applies here. We'll be very old or dead by the time society has shifted that far from its current believe in privacy — then you can start working on a technical solution (this may answer your initial question).