4 ms·

I don't get it. What political groups rely heavily on not being identified? Most political groups have leaders whose identity is public knowledge.

jahabrewer 8y ago
> What political groups rely heavily on not being identified? Resistances, opposition groups in some environments, etc.
throwaway66666 8y ago
It means you will be unidentified by political groups. EG let's say a right wing goverment in France finding all the gypsies in Paris. Or a life insurance corporation seeing that you have predisposition for heart disease, and refusing to provide services to you.
- usaphp 8y ago
  > Or a life insurance corporation seeing that you have predisposition for heart disease, and refusing to provide services to you. I don't get your example. It's a private company and has a right to decide what risks it should take...Unless there is a government control over life insurance rules - why would an insurance company risk losing money? It's the same as charging an 80 year old man higher premium than a 20 year old.
  - AllegedAlec 8y ago
    Because perfect information makes insurances useless. Insurances work because we know that most people have roughly the same chance, plus or minus a bit, to get royally fucked in life by disease, acts of God, human maliciousness and all that. That means that when someone gets the rough end of the stick, the entire group helps to pay to keep them on their feet. If we have perfect (or near-perfect) knowledge, what would insurers do? Well, they'd charge you for exactly how much you're going to cost, plus some administrative costs, plus some extra. At that point, everyone's better off not having insurance.
    - usaphp 8y ago
      > That means that when someone gets the rough end of the stick, the entire group helps to pay to keep them on their feet. That's exactly what I meant, government should be that entity that helps those on the rough end of the stick. Riding on the misinformation of life insurance company is not a solution either
      - jhayward 8y ago
        What you suggest is that insurance, as practiced for the past thousand years, not exist at all then.
      - Hithredin 8y ago
        > > Riding on the misinformation of life insurance company is not a solution either But this is the very and only concept of insurance: misinformation on misfortune...
ameister14 8y ago
When the US was still a part of the British Empire, it was pretty important for revolutionaries not to be easily identified. Same with resistance fighters against every empire ever. Spaniards against Napoleon, French against Hitler, Irish against Cromwell, Vietnamese against everybody. If I can identify your family members, I can threaten them and through them, you.
lemmsjid 8y ago
I think it's less about the leaders of a group than about its members themselves. When I read about the government having access to identification attributes of the general populace, I recall that a focal part of the Nazi attempts to eradicate European Jews was actually finding them. One theory for why Dutch Jews were killed at a higher rate than neighboring countries was that the government kept religious affiliation as part of its census information. IIRC, the Dutch resistance made a semi-successful attempt to destroy the records before they could be used. I can't find a direct reference to that particular event yet, hence my 'IIRC', but the general context is laid out in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II. I think the point here is that even if a government is being innocuous in its information gathering, what happens if the government is then occupied by a group that is entirely not innocuous? This can get much more subtle than genocide: for example healthcare groups using data to try to remove people with certain conditions from their rolls.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- roywiggins 8y ago
  See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust?wprov=sfla1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust?wprov=...

jahabrewer 8y ago

> What political groups rely heavily on not being identified? Resistances, opposition groups in some environments, etc.

throwaway66666 8y ago

It means you will be unidentified by political groups. EG let's say a right wing goverment in France finding all the gypsies in Paris. Or a life insurance corporation seeing that you have predisposition for heart disease, and refusing to provide services to you.

usaphp 8y ago
> Or a life insurance corporation seeing that you have predisposition for heart disease, and refusing to provide services to you. I don't get your example. It's a private company and has a right to decide what risks it should take...Unless there is a government control over life insurance rules - why would an insurance company risk losing money? It's the same as charging an 80 year old man higher premium than a 20 year old.
- AllegedAlec 8y ago
  Because perfect information makes insurances useless. Insurances work because we know that most people have roughly the same chance, plus or minus a bit, to get royally fucked in life by disease, acts of God, human maliciousness and all that. That means that when someone gets the rough end of the stick, the entire group helps to pay to keep them on their feet. If we have perfect (or near-perfect) knowledge, what would insurers do? Well, they'd charge you for exactly how much you're going to cost, plus some administrative costs, plus some extra. At that point, everyone's better off not having insurance.
  - usaphp 8y ago
    > That means that when someone gets the rough end of the stick, the entire group helps to pay to keep them on their feet. That's exactly what I meant, government should be that entity that helps those on the rough end of the stick. Riding on the misinformation of life insurance company is not a solution either
    - jhayward 8y ago
      What you suggest is that insurance, as practiced for the past thousand years, not exist at all then.
    - Hithredin 8y ago
      > > Riding on the misinformation of life insurance company is not a solution either But this is the very and only concept of insurance: misinformation on misfortune...

ameister14 8y ago

When the US was still a part of the British Empire, it was pretty important for revolutionaries not to be easily identified. Same with resistance fighters against every empire ever. Spaniards against Napoleon, French against Hitler, Irish against Cromwell, Vietnamese against everybody. If I can identify your family members, I can threaten them and through them, you.

lemmsjid 8y ago

I think it's less about the leaders of a group than about its members themselves. When I read about the government having access to identification attributes of the general populace, I recall that a focal part of the Nazi attempts to eradicate European Jews was actually finding them. One theory for why Dutch Jews were killed at a higher rate than neighboring countries was that the government kept religious affiliation as part of its census information. IIRC, the Dutch resistance made a semi-successful attempt to destroy the records before they could be used. I can't find a direct reference to that particular event yet, hence my 'IIRC', but the general context is laid out in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II. I think the point here is that even if a government is being innocuous in its information gathering, what happens if the government is then occupied by a group that is entirely not innocuous? This can get much more subtle than genocide: for example healthcare groups using data to try to remove people with certain conditions from their rolls.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
roywiggins 8y ago
See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust?wprov=sfla1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust?wprov=...