9 ms·
Privacy is one of those things I can't tangibly describe why I like it, but it just feels good to know that nothing is being saved, even in contrast to just tar
by gallerdude 9y ago
Privacy is one of those things I can't tangibly describe why I like it, but it just feels good to know that nothing is being saved, even in contrast to just targeting you for ads and nothing else.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoWe have a track record of things going south, fast, for societies that sacrifice privacy. It makes sense to tread warily with it.
- zachlatta 9y agoCan you give a few examples?
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoPretty much every authoritarian overthrow that became genocidal relied on a previous bureaucracy's meticulous record keeping.
- zachlatta 9y agoCan you please give a few examples?
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoThe classic ones are Pol Pot and Hitler. With the latter, the Danish example is useful.
- zachlatta 9y agoIn your original comment, you were implying that societies that lose privacy go south very quickly. As in that loss of privacy is causal. I can't speak for Pol Pot, since I'm not very familiar with his regime, but with Hitler and the Danish, my understanding is that record keeping aided in the German occupation. Not that the Denmark went downhill after it started doing meticulous data gathering. Can you give causal examples?
- FridgeSeal 9y agoAlso include the Stasi in East Germany.
- chrchang523 9y agoThere's an analogy with side-effect-free functions: things are easier to reason about when you don't have to worry about peripheral state changes.
- ahelwer 9y agoI like it because of this: imagine you're having an intimate conversation with your best friend. In the room silently sit representatives from Google, Facebook, and your government. Before you speak, you (sub)consciously transform your thoughts and phrasing taking into account both the theory of mind of your friend, and those other organizations. This necessarily has low-level overhead, and results in a less-intimate conversation. Privacy means you only have to care about communicating with the person with whom you're communicating. Organations with incomprehensible motives are cut out of the loop. You can be yourself, not a self-censoring corporate-approved robot.
- indubitable 9y agoThere is a very simple reason to demand privacy. We generally speak of organizations, companies, and governments that are seeking the penetrate the veil of individual privacy. And I think that leads people to forget that these entities are made up of people. And people can, and do, do bad things. A soft example is Snowden stating that NSA operators regularly pass around intercepted nude photo/video from people who had their privacy unjustly compromised: "These are seen as the fringe benefits of surveillance positions.." But the particularly disconcerting issue is that this information can be used against individuals. This article from the EFF highlights the FBI's actions against MLK: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-and-dangers-unchecked-surveillance https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/fbis-suicide-letter-dr... That letter was the FBI, posing as a disillusioned black supporter, detailing various embarrassing information that had been collected on MLK and encouraging him to commit suicide -- stating that it would all be published otherwise. And these couple of examples are only stuff that's being done by the "good guys." Information can, and will, be leaked, stolen, traded, and so on. One can only imagine the sort of things the "bad guys" could cook up.