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This is why the argument that lack of privacy is justified for good intentions is moot. Time moves on, ideals change and people in charge get replaced. There is
by potamic 5y ago
This is why the argument that lack of privacy is justified for good intentions is moot. Time moves on, ideals change and people in charge get replaced. There is no guarantee that principles held when collecting information will remain. Every single piece of information about you can and will be used against you by people in power if it hampers their agenda. The only reasonable thing to do when it comes to privacy is to share nothing, unless the situation absolutely needs it. Anonymous identity is very critical for the functioning of a healthy society and the biggest evil Google and Facebook have done was to really erase this off the internet.
- danjac 5y agoThis reminds me of the fate of Jews in occupied Holland in WW2. Prior to the war, religious affiliation was collected by the Dutch authorities for tax exemption purposes - perfectly benign and harmless. Those same records of course fell right into the hands of the Gestapo soon after the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, providing them with a convenient list of names to round up for deportation to the camps.
- josefx 5y agoThe Jewish Community in Germany uses the state assisted church tax collection. It seems that convenience beats history in that case.
- jd115 5y agoNo. The reason people don't have anonymity is that people don't want anonymity (or, rather, want the benefits of non-anonymity). It's easy to point fingers at large-scale evil-doers, but none of those exist in a vacuum, do they? Do we perhaps want stricter laws to protect people's anonymity? Cause I thought we wanted less laws, in order to allow for greater freedom. Ah, I got it, we want balance. But just a little tilted this way, if that's okay. Hard to please.
- mam3 5y agoIts so true. People dont have ideas they want to fight for anymore. If its doing ok for them its cool. Thats also the large majority of chinese citizen is "cool" with their government
- willis936 5y ago>Cause I thought we wanted less laws, in order to allow for greater freedom. Needless strawman. No one calling for more privacy is calling for smaller government.
- jd115 5y agoOh so you want privacy AND bigger government? Do you even hear yourself?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- willis936 5y agoI want a government that is big enough to have laws. You know, the things that society operates on top of. Laws that protect the people from rogue government behavior. How are laws related to privacy anything at all like a large DoD budget?
- jd115 5y agoYou seem to have some romantic notions about laws and government that are utterly divorced from reality. Not because reality is flawed, but because those ideals are flawed at their core.