6 ms·

So goddamn creepy. Why can't an innocent individual have private communications with other innocent individuals if so desired? Most private stuff is banal and

So goddamn creepy. Why can't an innocent individual have private communications with other innocent individuals if so desired? Most private stuff is banal and not worth a government budget to look at. The level of assumed self-sacrifice for the collective is getting high enough to breed rebellion.

1_player 6y ago
What rebellion? Anybody I've talked to about privacy has told me "so what, I don't have anything to hide."
- not_really 6y ago
  So I take it you would be fine with sharing all of your credit card and location history for the past 10 years with at least 5000 people you've never met?
  - p410n3 6y ago
    This is comparing apples with oranges. When I do give out my CC data I do this voluntarily and make an active decision each time to do so. I'm NOT giving it out to random people, some of which might be fraudsters
- redsparrow 6y ago
  It seems common for people to assume that privacy is about hiding something. Most people close the door when they're using a toilet in a public place. Is it because they have something to hide? Or is it that they want some privacy? Privacy can be about hiding things, but it's also about space and boundaries. I want to have some control over who gets to know me, and how intimately.
  - chokeartist 6y ago
    Exactly right. So much of the "I have nothing to hide" retort misses the fact that it isn't about big secrets, but rather a collection of little secrets (if you want to call them that - they are just facts that are sensitive). Less about are you planning to violently overthrow the United States Government. More about what genre of porn do you like to entertain yourself with. These little things can be used against you. We all have them.
- friendlybus 6y ago
  Why would anyone disagree with you publicly? Everyone I know who hates this stuff says so on the edge of normal conversations, couched in a wait-and-see vibe. Google Home gifts go unopened and tech devices are excluded from certain areas. The dialogue has become a scary game.
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    This is exactly what happened. Five years ago, I got sick of being called a conspiracy theorist, shut my mouth, and focused on my own privacy. Now the public generally seems to have a sense of what's happened to privacy, but has given up do to the upkeep required to avoid our ubiquitous surveillance machine. The people in my circle who still think there's hope won't buy smart devices, but won't go further, because to do so would lock them out of large chunks of modern society, or require them to maintain a level of technical skill and perform certain kinds of upkeep which would disadvantage them in the long run. The world's complex, many of us are living at the margins of insolvency. The bandwidth required to fight the panopticon is too damn high, and unless done very well, only produces a moral victory ('I'm fighting the system as best I can').
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Why can't an innocent individual have private communications with other innocent individuals if so desired? >Most private stuff is banal and not worth a government budget to look at. Private conversations are potentially a threat to government as an organization. People might convince one another to vote for less taxes and more accountability <clutches pearls>. As the cost of keeping tabs on this kind of stuff gets lower the government does it more. It's no different than BigCos tracking your mouse on their eCommerse site "because its, cheap, we can and it might be useful".
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Havoc 6y ago
  >Private conversations are potentially a threat to government as an organization. That argument could be made about damn near anything & used to justify banning near anything. At some point common sense needs to prevail
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    I don't disagree but clearly common sense is clearly not prevailing in the bureaucracies that cook up this shit. I think this is a fundamental problem with how we've structured modern organizations in a way that removes all personal accountability and responsibility. Everyone is accountable to the organization. Nobody has "be reasonable" as part of their job duties or performance evaluation. It's not wholly their fault but I blame the MBA-ization of everything for a lot of this.
    - mjparrott 6y ago
      Relative to MDs and JDs, is there a credible and in-use ethical creed for MBAs? MDs and JDs have some figment of doing no harm to try to help people. MBAs do anything legal to make a buck?
  - mmm_grayons 6y ago
    Not to mention that there are lots of things we should have precisely because they are a threat to the state: encryption that the government cannot break, automatic weapons, individual autonomy, etc. These things all can be abused by "the bad guys", and will be, but we accept those risks because they are inherent to being free.
freshhawk 6y ago
"for the collective" ... what collective? This is textbook top-down control, a small elite group spying on the masses. And when the masses find out it is considered a scandal.

1_player 6y ago

What rebellion? Anybody I've talked to about privacy has told me "so what, I don't have anything to hide."

not_really 6y ago
So I take it you would be fine with sharing all of your credit card and location history for the past 10 years with at least 5000 people you've never met?
- p410n3 6y ago
  This is comparing apples with oranges. When I do give out my CC data I do this voluntarily and make an active decision each time to do so. I'm NOT giving it out to random people, some of which might be fraudsters
redsparrow 6y ago
It seems common for people to assume that privacy is about hiding something. Most people close the door when they're using a toilet in a public place. Is it because they have something to hide? Or is it that they want some privacy? Privacy can be about hiding things, but it's also about space and boundaries. I want to have some control over who gets to know me, and how intimately.
- chokeartist 6y ago
  Exactly right. So much of the "I have nothing to hide" retort misses the fact that it isn't about big secrets, but rather a collection of little secrets (if you want to call them that - they are just facts that are sensitive). Less about are you planning to violently overthrow the United States Government. More about what genre of porn do you like to entertain yourself with. These little things can be used against you. We all have them.
friendlybus 6y ago
Why would anyone disagree with you publicly? Everyone I know who hates this stuff says so on the edge of normal conversations, couched in a wait-and-see vibe. Google Home gifts go unopened and tech devices are excluded from certain areas. The dialogue has become a scary game.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  This is exactly what happened. Five years ago, I got sick of being called a conspiracy theorist, shut my mouth, and focused on my own privacy. Now the public generally seems to have a sense of what's happened to privacy, but has given up do to the upkeep required to avoid our ubiquitous surveillance machine. The people in my circle who still think there's hope won't buy smart devices, but won't go further, because to do so would lock them out of large chunks of modern society, or require them to maintain a level of technical skill and perform certain kinds of upkeep which would disadvantage them in the long run. The world's complex, many of us are living at the margins of insolvency. The bandwidth required to fight the panopticon is too damn high, and unless done very well, only produces a moral victory ('I'm fighting the system as best I can').

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Why can't an innocent individual have private communications with other innocent individuals if so desired? >Most private stuff is banal and not worth a government budget to look at. Private conversations are potentially a threat to government as an organization. People might convince one another to vote for less taxes and more accountability <clutches pearls>. As the cost of keeping tabs on this kind of stuff gets lower the government does it more. It's no different than BigCos tracking your mouse on their eCommerse site "because its, cheap, we can and it might be useful".

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Havoc 6y ago
>Private conversations are potentially a threat to government as an organization. That argument could be made about damn near anything & used to justify banning near anything. At some point common sense needs to prevail
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  I don't disagree but clearly common sense is clearly not prevailing in the bureaucracies that cook up this shit. I think this is a fundamental problem with how we've structured modern organizations in a way that removes all personal accountability and responsibility. Everyone is accountable to the organization. Nobody has "be reasonable" as part of their job duties or performance evaluation. It's not wholly their fault but I blame the MBA-ization of everything for a lot of this.
  - mjparrott 6y ago
    Relative to MDs and JDs, is there a credible and in-use ethical creed for MBAs? MDs and JDs have some figment of doing no harm to try to help people. MBAs do anything legal to make a buck?
- mmm_grayons 6y ago
  Not to mention that there are lots of things we should have precisely because they are a threat to the state: encryption that the government cannot break, automatic weapons, individual autonomy, etc. These things all can be abused by "the bad guys", and will be, but we accept those risks because they are inherent to being free.

freshhawk 6y ago

"for the collective" ... what collective? This is textbook top-down control, a small elite group spying on the masses. And when the masses find out it is considered a scandal.