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This is great. I look forward to everyone's information being made public in the future. It might be embarrassing initially but if everyone else also has embarr

This is great. I look forward to everyone's information being made public in the future. It might be embarrassing initially but if everyone else also has embarrassing stuff released about them then it won't be so bad; it will make people more open and encourage us to be honest. Only criminal and highly unethical activity will be negatively affected. We need to re-calibrate our ideas about people and society to something more realistic. It will probably lower our overall opinion of humanity but at least people will know the truth and behave accordingly. Right now people are idealising certain things and behaving based on false information. In any case, I think it's unavoidable that all information will be public at some point in the future. It's been heading slowly in that direction since the dawn of civilization. Several hundred years ago, even a figure as powerful and well known as the pope could behave unethically and nobody would find out until hundreds of years later. Today it's much harder to keep things secret. I think big, embarrassing revelations like the Anthony Wiener scandal should become increasingly common.

watty 9y ago
Why would you want everyone's information made public? Do you see any value in anonymous (or semi-anonymous) discussions?
- Semaphor 9y ago
  It's possible they were led by utopian thinking. For example, I'd love a society where everyone knows everything about everyone but just doesn't care what weird ideas and preferences they have. But I also expect that no society that hasn't been telepathic since it's dawn would be work as well as the idea goes ;)
acdha 9y ago
> Only criminal and highly unethical activity will be negatively affected. Because nobody has ever suffered for being outed as LGBT, minority religion or political party, etc.? Losing a job, being beaten or killed go way beyond embarrassment and those outcomes are a given for millions of people. Many people like their various bigotries – whole religions feed on the social dynamics of saying everyone outside is sinful and trying to corrupt you – and while it'd be nice if revealing secrets lead to greater tolerance I'd bet a lot that the more likely outcome would be rage that they'd been infiltrated and purging anyone who had been keeping secrets.
- jondubois 9y ago
  Yeah but a lot of people who are currently pretending to be straight or even homophobic might actually be closeted themselves or they may have some real dirt on them. Your boss won't fire you for being gay if it turns out that they themselves are closeted or if they are laundering money, avoiding taxes or doing drugs, etc... Or even if your boss is in fact a very simple perfectly-behaved person, then 90% of employees in the company will have something potentially embarrassing about them and they're not going to fire 90% of the company. The higher you go up the ranks of society, the more dirt you will find. And the beauty of it is that people who are higher up the ranks will be uncovered first (due to public demand). The researchers didn't go after just anybody, they specifically looked up a politician and a judge. These are the natural targets; people who are supposed to represent and uphold society's moral ideals.
  - kenbellows 9y ago
    Hate to say it, but this is a rather naive perspective on human behavior and interaction. Like the GP said, the threat goes far beyond losing a job. For just one example, it is a very sad fact that transgender individuals face significantly higher rates of domestic violence, sexual violence, and stranger assault, especially trans individuals of color. More broadly, maybe it's true that fully outing all (or most, or many) closeted LGBTQ individuals would force faster societal change in the long term, but the short term effects may not be worth it, and anyway, I really don't think that decision should ever be in the hands of anyone other than the individuals themselves.
DarkKomunalec 9y ago
"Only criminal and highly unethical activity will be negatively affected." Such as whistleblowing, investigative journalism, and union organizing?
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  Don't forget that being gay was on that list fairly recently and civil rights were on that list in recent history. Society changes.
  - jondubois 9y ago
    Yeah but if people had known earlier about how widespread homosexuality was - They would have realised how little it means in the context of all the other stuff that people do; it would have been accepted sooner.
    - gcp 9y ago
      I think there's unfortunately examples where something being reasonably widespread did not stop it from being persecuted heavily.
  - DarkKomunalec 9y ago
    I deliberately didn't give historical examples, because I think many people dismiss them as "Oh but that was in the past - we know better now, and there's no chance of that repeating." - they feel too distant, almost abstract. And honestly, I mostly think they'll probably turn out to be correct - for those specific cases, for their countries. What I think will happen is some new group will be targeted - political, social, or ethnic. People that shouted a bit too loud at G20 protests, or condemned US involvement in the middle east too harshly, or published cracks for DRM. To convince them, you have to give examples of things that are at risk right now. Show them the gun pointed at their head, not the abandoned gunpowder refinery nearby, and tales of how it might start up again.
    - gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago
bilbo0s 9y ago
"...I look forward to everyone's information being made public in the future..." One of the problems is that everyone's information will not become public, and that asymmetry MIGHT lead to social power imbalances. A good "for instance" is that using some of the techniques outlined in the article, a person who might have had the discipline to never start using any social media sites would be part of that 5% of people that you could not identify. Every technique will have holes like that, and it will give some people a level of privacy that others don't have. And that's where even mundane things you would normally not even think about, begin to get affected by the social power imbalances. For instance, a company receives 2 resumes, one from me, one from someone who is "digitally invisible". (For lack of a better term.) The background check they run on me would be a whole lot more detailed than the check they run on the "digitally invisible" person. I guess the answer to that is for me to just not be a douche on the internet. At any rate, I don't know if I'm being clear, but I hope you can see where techniques like this could expose one person, but not another. It's not really "fair" in the way you described unless everyone is exposed.

watty 9y ago

Why would you want everyone's information made public? Do you see any value in anonymous (or semi-anonymous) discussions?

Semaphor 9y ago
It's possible they were led by utopian thinking. For example, I'd love a society where everyone knows everything about everyone but just doesn't care what weird ideas and preferences they have. But I also expect that no society that hasn't been telepathic since it's dawn would be work as well as the idea goes ;)

acdha 9y ago

> Only criminal and highly unethical activity will be negatively affected. Because nobody has ever suffered for being outed as LGBT, minority religion or political party, etc.? Losing a job, being beaten or killed go way beyond embarrassment and those outcomes are a given for millions of people. Many people like their various bigotries – whole religions feed on the social dynamics of saying everyone outside is sinful and trying to corrupt you – and while it'd be nice if revealing secrets lead to greater tolerance I'd bet a lot that the more likely outcome would be rage that they'd been infiltrated and purging anyone who had been keeping secrets.

jondubois 9y ago
Yeah but a lot of people who are currently pretending to be straight or even homophobic might actually be closeted themselves or they may have some real dirt on them. Your boss won't fire you for being gay if it turns out that they themselves are closeted or if they are laundering money, avoiding taxes or doing drugs, etc... Or even if your boss is in fact a very simple perfectly-behaved person, then 90% of employees in the company will have something potentially embarrassing about them and they're not going to fire 90% of the company. The higher you go up the ranks of society, the more dirt you will find. And the beauty of it is that people who are higher up the ranks will be uncovered first (due to public demand). The researchers didn't go after just anybody, they specifically looked up a politician and a judge. These are the natural targets; people who are supposed to represent and uphold society's moral ideals.
- kenbellows 9y ago
  Hate to say it, but this is a rather naive perspective on human behavior and interaction. Like the GP said, the threat goes far beyond losing a job. For just one example, it is a very sad fact that transgender individuals face significantly higher rates of domestic violence, sexual violence, and stranger assault, especially trans individuals of color. More broadly, maybe it's true that fully outing all (or most, or many) closeted LGBTQ individuals would force faster societal change in the long term, but the short term effects may not be worth it, and anyway, I really don't think that decision should ever be in the hands of anyone other than the individuals themselves.

DarkKomunalec 9y ago

"Only criminal and highly unethical activity will be negatively affected." Such as whistleblowing, investigative journalism, and union organizing?

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
Don't forget that being gay was on that list fairly recently and civil rights were on that list in recent history. Society changes.
- jondubois 9y ago
  Yeah but if people had known earlier about how widespread homosexuality was - They would have realised how little it means in the context of all the other stuff that people do; it would have been accepted sooner.
  - gcp 9y ago
    I think there's unfortunately examples where something being reasonably widespread did not stop it from being persecuted heavily.
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  I deliberately didn't give historical examples, because I think many people dismiss them as "Oh but that was in the past - we know better now, and there's no chance of that repeating." - they feel too distant, almost abstract. And honestly, I mostly think they'll probably turn out to be correct - for those specific cases, for their countries. What I think will happen is some new group will be targeted - political, social, or ethnic. People that shouted a bit too loud at G20 protests, or condemned US involvement in the middle east too harshly, or published cracks for DRM. To convince them, you have to give examples of things that are at risk right now. Show them the gun pointed at their head, not the abandoned gunpowder refinery nearby, and tales of how it might start up again.
  - gjjrfcbugxbhf 9y ago

bilbo0s 9y ago

"...I look forward to everyone's information being made public in the future..." One of the problems is that everyone's information will not become public, and that asymmetry MIGHT lead to social power imbalances. A good "for instance" is that using some of the techniques outlined in the article, a person who might have had the discipline to never start using any social media sites would be part of that 5% of people that you could not identify. Every technique will have holes like that, and it will give some people a level of privacy that others don't have. And that's where even mundane things you would normally not even think about, begin to get affected by the social power imbalances. For instance, a company receives 2 resumes, one from me, one from someone who is "digitally invisible". (For lack of a better term.) The background check they run on me would be a whole lot more detailed than the check they run on the "digitally invisible" person. I guess the answer to that is for me to just not be a douche on the internet. At any rate, I don't know if I'm being clear, but I hope you can see where techniques like this could expose one person, but not another. It's not really "fair" in the way you described unless everyone is exposed.