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You pay taxes to the government on those imaginary private deals, right? I think mostly the salary thing is about feeling awkward rather than it being about pri

You pay taxes to the government on those imaginary private deals, right? I think mostly the salary thing is about feeling awkward rather than it being about privacy. Why does your salary deserve to be kept private? I'm trying to think of a reason that isn't some people feel awkward about it being open? If salaries are open I think that would go away and people would be more free to talk about money. Finally in almost every company I have worked in everyone tries to work out what everyone else is on to better negotiate their own salaries, it just makes it difficult to mention...

patrickaljord 9y ago
Why should how many times you have intercourse per week be kept private? I'm trying to think of a reason that isn't some people feel awkward about it being open? If how many times you have intercourse per week is open I think that would go away and people would be more free to talk about their sex life. See how it goes? You could literally use the same argument for any privacy concern ever.
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  It's about 4 on average. However, this isn't the same thing and there is no benefits for other people knowing that I can think of; there may be lots of benefits for knowing everyone's salary.
  - patrickaljord 9y ago
    > there is no benefit for knowing I just gave you a benefit, people being more open about their sex life could be a good thing for society. Should we force people to tell how many time they have intercourse then based on your logic?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - probablybroken 9y ago
      It could be argued that income inequality is a much greater source of problems for society.
      - charlesdm 9y ago
        Not really. Wealth inequality is a problem. Income inequality not so much. Whether someone makes $100k a year, or $500k, or even $5M a year is irrelevant. In the grand scheme of things, even $500m is pocket change. The problem is with major wealth holders, e.g. people or families with assets in excess of say $1bn, who generate disproportionate gains when held to the effort they put in. Making $50m a year with $1bn isn't hard. I can do that. But those people don't spend that $50m in extra gains. It accumulates. And you get a massive snowball effect. Compound interest is great and a pillar of capitalism, but past a certain point it can get problematic.
        pimmen 9y ago
        In Norway and the rest of Scandinavia (Swedish here) you get data on all the income, even capital gains. Even some benefits that you have to pay taxes on is included here.
        petre 9y ago
        The capital gains can be offshored, so it won't be in Scandinavia and the ones benefiting wouldn't pay taxes there but rather small change in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands. People with lots of wealth are used to this or they can definitely afford to pay someone who is.
    - pimmen 9y ago
      Ok, so all benefits are equal, and all drawbacks are equal? We as a society can't do anything that's not beneficial to absolutely everyone? I posit that a few things are not that harmful to make public, except in some cases that varies for each individual (like being in a witness protection program) if someone already has the means to identify you as you (such as a full name). Some of those things would be your address, what vehicles you own, wether or not you have stock in corporations, wether or not you're married, your age, your level of education and some other things. I don't see how the knowledge about these things can be used to blackmail you through social stigma, unless you did something illegal. I have the same feeling towards pay checks. The discussion is wether or not pay checks are too private to disclose publicly, not if it's ok to release everything about everyone.
      - patrickaljord 9y ago
        > We as a society can't do anything that's not beneficial to absolutely everyone? Are you aware that laws are enforced by government force? That is to say, if you don't obey to a law, cops will be sent to your house and if you resist they will point guns at you and shoot. This is a non-controversial fact that both leftists and right-wing economists, politicians and philosophers agree upon. Now, with that in mind, I don't like guns and I think they should only be used in extreme situations. I don't consider knowing people's paycheck to be one of these situations where gun violence should be used and therefor I'm opposed to this law forcing people to publish their income as I think gun violence would not make sense in this case. If people do not want to publish this private information, then let them be. That's just my opinion though, if you believe it is worse it to kill people who resist giving up the amount of their paycheck (because that's how every law is enforced if one resists), then you're right, this law is great.
        namlem 9y ago
        Not true, you could make it a tort instead of a law, where employees can sue for punitive damages if secret negotiations have occurred. No guns necessary.
        9y ago
dageshi 9y ago
I can see scenarios where you have someone in your extended family/friends who constantly attempts to leech money off you because they know you have it. This is something people who win the lottery often face which is why (in the UK) they can choose not to make their win public. More fundamentally, you pay taxes on your private deal with your employer but the government is just a third party involved in that transaction, the same as your bank. Neither the government nor your bank makes the amounts of tax you pay or what you earn public, them knowing doesn't really impact your privacy in any meaningful way. I don't quite understand how you've got from "well the government knows what you earn so everyone should!". I don't consider that something being a "societal good" automatically overrides peoples right to privacy, different people will consider different things to be private, many would consider that my personal medical data would be better off open to the public in fine detail as it would help medical research but this is generally not the case (in the UK at least) and neither should it be.
notahacker 9y ago
Relevant parts of the government also know what my healthcare status is, but that doesn't mean I'm particularly keen to make it readily discoverable and benchmarkable by anyone and everyone that might wish to profit from this information. Hacker News might just be the only place where you can see howls with rage at the thought of recruiters and HR asking them their salary in their current job with the obvious intention of not offering much more than that and arguments that this information should be accessible to everyone without question in nice little searchable databases anyway...
- steanne 9y ago
  because of the disparity, not the information itself. if you (and everyone else applying for the job) give that info to a recruiter, the recruiter has and can act on all the info, but everyone else only has their one bit.
  - notahacker 9y ago
    What use is the additional information when the employer offers you your existing salary plus 10% when they were willing to pay more?

patrickaljord 9y ago

Why should how many times you have intercourse per week be kept private? I'm trying to think of a reason that isn't some people feel awkward about it being open? If how many times you have intercourse per week is open I think that would go away and people would be more free to talk about their sex life. See how it goes? You could literally use the same argument for any privacy concern ever.

andy_ppp 9y ago
It's about 4 on average. However, this isn't the same thing and there is no benefits for other people knowing that I can think of; there may be lots of benefits for knowing everyone's salary.
- patrickaljord 9y ago
  > there is no benefit for knowing I just gave you a benefit, people being more open about their sex life could be a good thing for society. Should we force people to tell how many time they have intercourse then based on your logic?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - probablybroken 9y ago
    It could be argued that income inequality is a much greater source of problems for society.
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      Not really. Wealth inequality is a problem. Income inequality not so much. Whether someone makes $100k a year, or $500k, or even $5M a year is irrelevant. In the grand scheme of things, even $500m is pocket change. The problem is with major wealth holders, e.g. people or families with assets in excess of say $1bn, who generate disproportionate gains when held to the effort they put in. Making $50m a year with $1bn isn't hard. I can do that. But those people don't spend that $50m in extra gains. It accumulates. And you get a massive snowball effect. Compound interest is great and a pillar of capitalism, but past a certain point it can get problematic.
      - pimmen 9y ago
        In Norway and the rest of Scandinavia (Swedish here) you get data on all the income, even capital gains. Even some benefits that you have to pay taxes on is included here.
        petre 9y ago
        The capital gains can be offshored, so it won't be in Scandinavia and the ones benefiting wouldn't pay taxes there but rather small change in the Bahamas or Cayman Islands. People with lots of wealth are used to this or they can definitely afford to pay someone who is.
  - pimmen 9y ago
    Ok, so all benefits are equal, and all drawbacks are equal? We as a society can't do anything that's not beneficial to absolutely everyone? I posit that a few things are not that harmful to make public, except in some cases that varies for each individual (like being in a witness protection program) if someone already has the means to identify you as you (such as a full name). Some of those things would be your address, what vehicles you own, wether or not you have stock in corporations, wether or not you're married, your age, your level of education and some other things. I don't see how the knowledge about these things can be used to blackmail you through social stigma, unless you did something illegal. I have the same feeling towards pay checks. The discussion is wether or not pay checks are too private to disclose publicly, not if it's ok to release everything about everyone.
    - patrickaljord 9y ago
      > We as a society can't do anything that's not beneficial to absolutely everyone? Are you aware that laws are enforced by government force? That is to say, if you don't obey to a law, cops will be sent to your house and if you resist they will point guns at you and shoot. This is a non-controversial fact that both leftists and right-wing economists, politicians and philosophers agree upon. Now, with that in mind, I don't like guns and I think they should only be used in extreme situations. I don't consider knowing people's paycheck to be one of these situations where gun violence should be used and therefor I'm opposed to this law forcing people to publish their income as I think gun violence would not make sense in this case. If people do not want to publish this private information, then let them be. That's just my opinion though, if you believe it is worse it to kill people who resist giving up the amount of their paycheck (because that's how every law is enforced if one resists), then you're right, this law is great.
      - namlem 9y ago
        Not true, you could make it a tort instead of a law, where employees can sue for punitive damages if secret negotiations have occurred. No guns necessary.
        9y ago

dageshi 9y ago

I can see scenarios where you have someone in your extended family/friends who constantly attempts to leech money off you because they know you have it. This is something people who win the lottery often face which is why (in the UK) they can choose not to make their win public. More fundamentally, you pay taxes on your private deal with your employer but the government is just a third party involved in that transaction, the same as your bank. Neither the government nor your bank makes the amounts of tax you pay or what you earn public, them knowing doesn't really impact your privacy in any meaningful way. I don't quite understand how you've got from "well the government knows what you earn so everyone should!". I don't consider that something being a "societal good" automatically overrides peoples right to privacy, different people will consider different things to be private, many would consider that my personal medical data would be better off open to the public in fine detail as it would help medical research but this is generally not the case (in the UK at least) and neither should it be.

notahacker 9y ago

Relevant parts of the government also know what my healthcare status is, but that doesn't mean I'm particularly keen to make it readily discoverable and benchmarkable by anyone and everyone that might wish to profit from this information. Hacker News might just be the only place where you can see howls with rage at the thought of recruiters and HR asking them their salary in their current job with the obvious intention of not offering much more than that and arguments that this information should be accessible to everyone without question in nice little searchable databases anyway...

steanne 9y ago
because of the disparity, not the information itself. if you (and everyone else applying for the job) give that info to a recruiter, the recruiter has and can act on all the info, but everyone else only has their one bit.
- notahacker 9y ago
  What use is the additional information when the employer offers you your existing salary plus 10% when they were willing to pay more?