I had been a staunch advocate of not sharing any personal information wherever possible, but recently I've been thinking whether I've approached the whole priva

I had been a staunch advocate of not sharing any personal information wherever possible, but recently I've been thinking whether I've approached the whole privacy issue from a wrong angle. I now believe privacy is the lesser evil we pursue because of lack of trust. The world is full of "evil" corporates that funnel our personal info into black boxes for their private gains. We have no idea what happens to our data once they're collected and fear that they could be used to exploit or even harm us down the road. In this zero-sum environment, our best option to protect ourselves is by not sharing data at all. Trust is the game changer. We almost take it for granted that increased transparency is inherently good, and we've seen how people's data could be used for good in how countries like S. Korea handled the COVID crisis. Verifiability and transparency are how we achieve trust.