3 ms·

So the standard of illegality now is what people consider creepy or cringey? Maybe this is actually the solution to the Fermi Paradox, technological civilizatio

So the standard of illegality now is what people consider creepy or cringey? Maybe this is actually the solution to the Fermi Paradox, technological civilizations dwindle as they engage in navel gazing and precautionary restraints.

sorokod 8y ago
Yup, by and large societies determine the parameters in which they would like to operate. These take the form of social agreements, laws, constitutions etc... In the olden days it was normal and legal to own people. Then (most) societies "decided" that they are not comfortable with the idea anymore and the norms and laws changed.
- cromwellian 8y ago
  That's a rather bad analogy, considering that slavery is an initiation of force against an individual, giving them no choice, over a physical good (their own body). Information is a non-rival good, someone's possession of it doesn't diminish your possession of it, unlike say, a slave master possessing you on a plantation. Philosophically, some of these regulations run afoul negative rights. When you interact with other people, or any entity, they will retain a memory of it. A lot of this data collection used to exist, but was informal, on pen and paper, or simply retained by the mind of the local establishments as their customers were locals. Saying that you own information that is by nature joint information like an entangled particle, and that another party must erase it, may be a pragmatic and utilitarian policy to deal with the increasing probability of bad actors (State or otherwise) misusing information, but the philosophy behind it rubs me the wrong way. Let's say a run a video arcade, and I keep track of which games everyone plays when they come in through the door. Though I hold no PII on the people, through some mechanism I can assign them a unique ID and recognize them on return (e.g. token card). Why should this joint information: what entities playing my arcade cabinets, be exclusively owned by you, especially if I'm not even providing the games for free? I'm asking this as a philosophical question, what's the moral justification that one side of a two sided exchange retains exclusivity to information? (and by exclusivity, I mean your right to ask me to delete it)
  - sorokod 8y ago
    I was not comparing slavery to lack of data privacy. The point I was trying to make was that, in the greater scheme of things, there is no requirement for philosophical or moral motivation to change laws - only a critical mass of people who want the change. In this context, the slavery example wasn't a good one as it is so charged with exactly that. Perhaps drug prohibition laws are a better example in general and Alcohol prohibition in the US in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un... With this in mind there is no need for moral justification that one side of a two sided exchange retains exclusivity to information (and given the way personal data is used and abused, I think that there is such justification) , only sufficient public opinion that this is how things should be.
  - phs318u 8y ago
    > someone's possession of it doesn't diminish your possession of it However someone's possession of data about you may indeed diminish other rights you hold and/or may be used to gain advantage at your expense. This is why we talk about data getting "into the wrong hands". I may not care for my employer to know about my sexual proclivities. I may not care for insurers to know my search history and draw (possibly incorrect) inferences from it. The argument regarding privacy isn't about the potential that others' knowledge of your info diminishes the utility of the data to you (in most cases there is no _personal_ utility). It's about the power to restrict who can use that information as leverage in the advancement of their interests, often to the detriment of your own. It's about preserving agency.

sorokod 8y ago

Yup, by and large societies determine the parameters in which they would like to operate. These take the form of social agreements, laws, constitutions etc... In the olden days it was normal and legal to own people. Then (most) societies "decided" that they are not comfortable with the idea anymore and the norms and laws changed.

cromwellian 8y ago
That's a rather bad analogy, considering that slavery is an initiation of force against an individual, giving them no choice, over a physical good (their own body). Information is a non-rival good, someone's possession of it doesn't diminish your possession of it, unlike say, a slave master possessing you on a plantation. Philosophically, some of these regulations run afoul negative rights. When you interact with other people, or any entity, they will retain a memory of it. A lot of this data collection used to exist, but was informal, on pen and paper, or simply retained by the mind of the local establishments as their customers were locals. Saying that you own information that is by nature joint information like an entangled particle, and that another party must erase it, may be a pragmatic and utilitarian policy to deal with the increasing probability of bad actors (State or otherwise) misusing information, but the philosophy behind it rubs me the wrong way. Let's say a run a video arcade, and I keep track of which games everyone plays when they come in through the door. Though I hold no PII on the people, through some mechanism I can assign them a unique ID and recognize them on return (e.g. token card). Why should this joint information: what entities playing my arcade cabinets, be exclusively owned by you, especially if I'm not even providing the games for free? I'm asking this as a philosophical question, what's the moral justification that one side of a two sided exchange retains exclusivity to information? (and by exclusivity, I mean your right to ask me to delete it)
- sorokod 8y ago
  I was not comparing slavery to lack of data privacy. The point I was trying to make was that, in the greater scheme of things, there is no requirement for philosophical or moral motivation to change laws - only a critical mass of people who want the change. In this context, the slavery example wasn't a good one as it is so charged with exactly that. Perhaps drug prohibition laws are a better example in general and Alcohol prohibition in the US in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un... With this in mind there is no need for moral justification that one side of a two sided exchange retains exclusivity to information (and given the way personal data is used and abused, I think that there is such justification) , only sufficient public opinion that this is how things should be.
- phs318u 8y ago
  > someone's possession of it doesn't diminish your possession of it However someone's possession of data about you may indeed diminish other rights you hold and/or may be used to gain advantage at your expense. This is why we talk about data getting "into the wrong hands". I may not care for my employer to know about my sexual proclivities. I may not care for insurers to know my search history and draw (possibly incorrect) inferences from it. The argument regarding privacy isn't about the potential that others' knowledge of your info diminishes the utility of the data to you (in most cases there is no _personal_ utility). It's about the power to restrict who can use that information as leverage in the advancement of their interests, often to the detriment of your own. It's about preserving agency.