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The argument is incorrect. I may want to say something in the future but I may not want to hide something because one is legal and other is illegal unless there

The argument is incorrect. I may want to say something in the future but I may not want to hide something because one is legal and other is illegal unless there is a dictatorship.

coldtea 7y ago
>but I may not want to hide something because one is legal and other is illegal unless there is a dictatorship. There's no democracy vs dictatorship binary. It's a spectrum. There are all kinds of things that are legal but the public sentiment is against them, so you want to hide them to protect your social life/career/etc. Being gay in the 70s was one of them. Or a communist sympathizer in the McCarthy era. Many things in 2020 too from both the left and right side (e.g. it's not like the right wingers are safe. For example, news that he donated against a popular progressive cause cost someone his CEO position at a major tech company -- and that's despite the fact that the majority of his state voted in the same vein). There all also things that are nominally legal but the government/law/local authorities will hold against you in a democracy. Being a peaceful human rights activist would still get you a large folder at the FBI, and in Southern towns could get you harassed by the police. There are also things you want to keep hidden because you just don't want them public, like your sexual preferences of BDSM or "golden showers", your sex tapes with your partners, your gossip mails or chat against a colleague or boss with a third party, and so on. If you are in any position of relative power or even small influence (that could stop something, or speak out, etc), then people with interests (from government, industry, etc) can blackmail you with your private information on any of those categories, to vote or do something in their favor or look the other way. Democracy always progresses through people working against certain laws and customs and cultural ideas. Child labor, women's rights, universal vote, black rights, gay rights, etc. And since those things are established, those people work against laws/majority opinion/powerful interests/etc. So they do have a need to keep their ideas or moves or who sympathizes secretly, etc secret while they work towards their goal (plus anything else that could be used to blackmail them or hurt them, even if not relevant to that cause - e.g. MLK's affairs had nothing to do with his cause, but they could still be used to discredit him at the time). And since people are people, even a very good person, working towards a very legit cause, or wanting to prevent some bad from happening, could still have illegal activity of his own that he doesn't want to be made public and hurt them. E.g. they could be doing psychedelic drugs. I don't see why someone in the US e.g. can be so self-congratulating on "nothing to hide in a democracy", when they had Jim Crow until the 40s, segregation until the 70s, McCarthy, Hoover, Watergate, modern mass surveillance, frequent police abuse (from Serpico to Rodney King to today), lots of scandals and abuses that came into light only by whistleblowers (corporate, governmental, etc), often themselves prosecuted or abused for it, and so on.
- biolurker1 7y ago
  I agree and this is a very sound argument that I would like to see in the article.I am pro privacy and I also like arguments to be solid otherwise they are not convincing enough to turn public opinion. I hope more people read your comment

The argument is incorrect. I may want to say something in the future but I may not want to hide something because one is legal and other is illegal unless there is a dictatorship.

coldtea 7y ago

>but I may not want to hide something because one is legal and other is illegal unless there is a dictatorship. There's no democracy vs dictatorship binary. It's a spectrum. There are all kinds of things that are legal but the public sentiment is against them, so you want to hide them to protect your social life/career/etc. Being gay in the 70s was one of them. Or a communist sympathizer in the McCarthy era. Many things in 2020 too from both the left and right side (e.g. it's not like the right wingers are safe. For example, news that he donated against a popular progressive cause cost someone his CEO position at a major tech company -- and that's despite the fact that the majority of his state voted in the same vein). There all also things that are nominally legal but the government/law/local authorities will hold against you in a democracy. Being a peaceful human rights activist would still get you a large folder at the FBI, and in Southern towns could get you harassed by the police. There are also things you want to keep hidden because you just don't want them public, like your sexual preferences of BDSM or "golden showers", your sex tapes with your partners, your gossip mails or chat against a colleague or boss with a third party, and so on. If you are in any position of relative power or even small influence (that could stop something, or speak out, etc), then people with interests (from government, industry, etc) can blackmail you with your private information on any of those categories, to vote or do something in their favor or look the other way. Democracy always progresses through people working against certain laws and customs and cultural ideas. Child labor, women's rights, universal vote, black rights, gay rights, etc. And since those things are established, those people work against laws/majority opinion/powerful interests/etc. So they do have a need to keep their ideas or moves or who sympathizes secretly, etc secret while they work towards their goal (plus anything else that could be used to blackmail them or hurt them, even if not relevant to that cause - e.g. MLK's affairs had nothing to do with his cause, but they could still be used to discredit him at the time). And since people are people, even a very good person, working towards a very legit cause, or wanting to prevent some bad from happening, could still have illegal activity of his own that he doesn't want to be made public and hurt them. E.g. they could be doing psychedelic drugs. I don't see why someone in the US e.g. can be so self-congratulating on "nothing to hide in a democracy", when they had Jim Crow until the 40s, segregation until the 70s, McCarthy, Hoover, Watergate, modern mass surveillance, frequent police abuse (from Serpico to Rodney King to today), lots of scandals and abuses that came into light only by whistleblowers (corporate, governmental, etc), often themselves prosecuted or abused for it, and so on.

biolurker1 7y ago
I agree and this is a very sound argument that I would like to see in the article.I am pro privacy and I also like arguments to be solid otherwise they are not convincing enough to turn public opinion. I hope more people read your comment