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This article draws conclusions not in evidence, and thinking about this more broadly there is nothing about individualism that requires a loss of privacy. On t

This article draws conclusions not in evidence, and thinking about this more broadly there is nothing about individualism that requires a loss of privacy. On the contrary, I myself, as most staunch individualists, are also privacy advocates, and we structure our lives to both preserve our individuality and freedom, and privacy is a central point of that. What external structures do not know about you cannot be used to manipulate or control you, so privacy is a bedrock cornerstone of individual liberty and the individualist movement. Their example of doorbell cameras especially falls flat to me, because most people (including myself) are motivated to have a doorbell camera due to our own individual issues and not to support police dragnet surveillance. Some folks, myself included, even have made the effort to use doorbell cameras that are not cloud connected and record video locally on NVR so that this data can't be shared without our explicit permission. There is nothing about these situations that /requires/ a loss of privacy, and the causal link assumed in this article is not established within. It's simply the case that every major tech company is incentivized to create systems that destroy privacy because they can more effectively monetize on our data and government agencies turn a blind eye because they also benefit from the loss of privacy in the private sector. It takes technical acumen and effort to ensure your privacy while still taking care to utilize modern technology, and the majority of people, even in the tech industry, do not have the necessary technical acumen to do so. This is clearly a problem, but it's not a trade-off between individualism and privacy, it's a trade-off between the greed of dystopian multi-national megacorps and privacy.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jrumbut 5y ago
I thought it was pretty well established. The author wasn't saying that people who value individualism don't value privacy, rather that the pursuit of individual over community values caused an erosion of privacy (regardless of anyone's intentions). The argument was that getting rid of the informal, localized social norm enforcement mechanisms (your nosy neighbors, a meddlesome priest, etc) that used to prevent people from fully expressing their individuality created a vaccuum that was filled by surveillance. Your nosy neighbor used to judge you for things we don't think ought to be judged anymore, but they also noticed if you were drinking too much or stopped going to work because your mental health was declining. Since society still needs to work and not drive drunk, surveillance by states and large corporations has stepped in to fill the gap. So, according to the author, the individualistic ethos brought us to the point where some machine will silently judge me for this post.
- naasking 5y ago
  > The argument was that getting rid of the informal, localized social norm enforcement mechanisms (your nosy neighbors, a meddlesome priest, etc) that used to prevent people from fully expressing their individuality created a vaccuum that was filled by surveillance. I'm not clear on why this vacuum must exist and more importantly, why it must be filled.
  - jrumbut 5y ago
    I don't know either.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    We live in a society.
    - naasking 5y ago
      Yes, a society ruled by laws. We're not talking about a vacuum of laws.
      - Apocryphon 5y ago
        I think the idea is that the increased size and density of society has led to more complex social structures that prior laws were not able to catch up to. See your sibling comment about the consolidation of populations into cities and the creation of modern policing. Technological advancement also leads to more issues- contrast the multitude of free speech/censorship fights over online content vs. AOL chat rooms having blanket moderator policies two decades ago. As society grows, so does the vacuum created by places the law is hazy on. And so does the number of bad actors, from thieves snatching Amazon packages off doorsteps to jihadist suicide bombers.
        naasking 5y ago
        > As society grows, so does the vacuum created by places the law is hazy on. And so does the number of bad actors, from thieves snatching Amazon packages off doorsteps to jihadist suicide bombers. I'm pretty sure the law is not hazy one bit on either of those issues. The original claim was that social norms was enforcing some kind of behaviour, and that individualism has eroded those norms thus permitting previously forbidden behaviours, and therefore led to us deploying surveillance to "pick up the slack" to enforce such behaviours. I'm still not clear that those norms were necessarily good, that eroding them was necessarily bad, that all of those behaviours should be forbidden, and that therefore this is why surveillance arose. Presumably, surveillance is used to go after those breaking the law, not those breaking social norms, so this just seems like an elaborate non sequitur.
tablespoon 5y ago
> This article draws conclusions not in evidence, and thinking about this more broadly there is nothing about individualism that requires a loss of privacy. That may be true, however, individualism may increase the probability that you'll lose it, just not to 1. > On the contrary, I myself, as most staunch individualists, are also privacy advocates, and we structure our lives to both preserve our individuality and freedom, and privacy is a central point of that. What you advocate for isn't necessarily what you get. > Their example of doorbell cameras especially falls flat to me, because most people (including myself) are motivated to have a doorbell camera due to our own individual issues and not to support police dragnet surveillance. Some folks, myself included, even have made the effort to use doorbell cameras that are not cloud connected and record video locally on NVR so that this data can't be shared without our explicit permission. There is nothing about these situations that /requires/ a loss of privacy, and the causal link assumed in this article is not established within. Aren't everybody else's doorbell camera's the privacy issue? The ones the staunch individualist has no control over?
- tristor 5y ago
  > Aren't everybody else's doorbell camera's the privacy issue? The ones the staunch individualist has no control over? Maybe. There's nothing that prevents other people from having a doorbell camera that doesn't violate privacy, except for the greed of large companies. Certainly most people do not install a doorbell camera with the intent to violate privacy, so it doesn't logically follow for me that doorbell cameras necessarily cause a privacy issue, not the least of which because I was able to set one up that does not cause a privacy issue. The privacy issue here isn't caused by your neighbors possibly having a recording of what you do on the public street, it's caused by a random person and a law enforcement agency and a data broker company in different parts of the world and with no relationship to you having a recording of what you did on the public street. The doorbell camera alone is fundamentally no different from your neighbor peering out the window or checking their peephole in the front door. The difference comes from the companies building systems /explicitly/ on the basis of capturing and trading/selling that data and embedding this in the products they offer to consumers. It does not have to be this way, and indeed there are product offerings that don't upload live streams of the all their video to the cloud to be snarfed up my data brokers, voyeurs, and police agencies. Remember, these are cameras pointed at a public street, so while there is a reasonable expectation that you have privacy from non-involved/non-present parties to your actions there, there is no such expectation of privacy from those who could reasonable observe you. Individuals who wish to keep their actions secret don't do them on the public street in broad daylight, and that has been true for millennia.
snarf21 5y ago
While correct, I think you are missing the point on doorbell cameras. Of course it doesn't require trusting Ring to not destroy your privacy by using their system. However, what percentage of people who want a doorbell camera are going to go through the work of setting up a local NVR. It is practically zero. I think the other issue is that if everyone else in your neighborhood does have a Ring, how does that not affect your privacy? Of course, Ring's business model is fear mongering and I'm not absolving them. But people will generally choose the path of least resistance. The fact that people want a camera to prevent a package from being stolen not because they want to create a police dragnet means almost nothing when the result of the camera sales creates an abusable police dragnet. And to be clear, some people actually do want to create the police dragnet because "other people" are scary. Spend 10 minutes on NextDoor and you will see lots of this.
- nixpulvis 5y ago
  To add to this... Even if you did setup a local CCTV monitoring system, how would I know you did that? It's completely fair to assume at this point that any camera watching you is syncing all of it's data with The Big Scary Cloud. I'm deeply offended that, even as I write this post, my office cameras are staring me in the face. We SHOULD NOT stand for this bullshit.
kodah 5y ago
Like you, I'm not sure how the article arrived at the cost of individualism is privacy. I'm very individualist (I guess?). I've been in a collectivist culture before (the military) and immediately one of the first things you become aware of is that the cost to collectivism is privacy. That could just be my experience, and really privacy may not be related to either, but more the values of the group. In individualism it's the average of how much each individual values privacy, where in collectivism the result is more a statement about the groups goals (or rather, the purpose for which they are collectivist.)
mbostleman 5y ago
Exactly. Consumer tech today from social media to hardware devices like doorbell cameras seem to only be able to exist (eg. funded) if they include collecting data on the user. Therein is the problem and there is no technical reason why tech x has to include spying features. But if there is no way to get tech x to market without them, then so be it. As an individualist myself, I am retreating rapidly in to not using tech. The last thing I would ever do is put an Amazon microphone in my kitchen or a Google camera on my door. I have switched to DDG and Brave. And as time allows, considering ways to use email and phones without being spied on. It's a sad state of affairs - not so much the market reality that privacy breaching is the primary monetization, but that not everyone else is like me and rejects it. The masses willingly swallow it.
HWR_14 5y ago
> Some folks, myself included, even have made the effort to use doorbell cameras that are not cloud connected and record video locally on NVR so that this data can't be shared without our explicit permission. Well, if a crime is committed in an area the police think your doorbell is viewing and you refuse to turn over any footage then they cops will serve you a warrant.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jrumbut 5y ago

I thought it was pretty well established. The author wasn't saying that people who value individualism don't value privacy, rather that the pursuit of individual over community values caused an erosion of privacy (regardless of anyone's intentions). The argument was that getting rid of the informal, localized social norm enforcement mechanisms (your nosy neighbors, a meddlesome priest, etc) that used to prevent people from fully expressing their individuality created a vaccuum that was filled by surveillance. Your nosy neighbor used to judge you for things we don't think ought to be judged anymore, but they also noticed if you were drinking too much or stopped going to work because your mental health was declining. Since society still needs to work and not drive drunk, surveillance by states and large corporations has stepped in to fill the gap. So, according to the author, the individualistic ethos brought us to the point where some machine will silently judge me for this post.

naasking 5y ago
> The argument was that getting rid of the informal, localized social norm enforcement mechanisms (your nosy neighbors, a meddlesome priest, etc) that used to prevent people from fully expressing their individuality created a vaccuum that was filled by surveillance. I'm not clear on why this vacuum must exist and more importantly, why it must be filled.
- jrumbut 5y ago
  I don't know either.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  We live in a society.
  - naasking 5y ago
    Yes, a society ruled by laws. We're not talking about a vacuum of laws.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      I think the idea is that the increased size and density of society has led to more complex social structures that prior laws were not able to catch up to. See your sibling comment about the consolidation of populations into cities and the creation of modern policing. Technological advancement also leads to more issues- contrast the multitude of free speech/censorship fights over online content vs. AOL chat rooms having blanket moderator policies two decades ago. As society grows, so does the vacuum created by places the law is hazy on. And so does the number of bad actors, from thieves snatching Amazon packages off doorsteps to jihadist suicide bombers.
      - naasking 5y ago
        > As society grows, so does the vacuum created by places the law is hazy on. And so does the number of bad actors, from thieves snatching Amazon packages off doorsteps to jihadist suicide bombers. I'm pretty sure the law is not hazy one bit on either of those issues. The original claim was that social norms was enforcing some kind of behaviour, and that individualism has eroded those norms thus permitting previously forbidden behaviours, and therefore led to us deploying surveillance to "pick up the slack" to enforce such behaviours. I'm still not clear that those norms were necessarily good, that eroding them was necessarily bad, that all of those behaviours should be forbidden, and that therefore this is why surveillance arose. Presumably, surveillance is used to go after those breaking the law, not those breaking social norms, so this just seems like an elaborate non sequitur.

tablespoon 5y ago

> This article draws conclusions not in evidence, and thinking about this more broadly there is nothing about individualism that requires a loss of privacy. That may be true, however, individualism may increase the probability that you'll lose it, just not to 1. > On the contrary, I myself, as most staunch individualists, are also privacy advocates, and we structure our lives to both preserve our individuality and freedom, and privacy is a central point of that. What you advocate for isn't necessarily what you get. > Their example of doorbell cameras especially falls flat to me, because most people (including myself) are motivated to have a doorbell camera due to our own individual issues and not to support police dragnet surveillance. Some folks, myself included, even have made the effort to use doorbell cameras that are not cloud connected and record video locally on NVR so that this data can't be shared without our explicit permission. There is nothing about these situations that /requires/ a loss of privacy, and the causal link assumed in this article is not established within. Aren't everybody else's doorbell camera's the privacy issue? The ones the staunch individualist has no control over?

tristor 5y ago
> Aren't everybody else's doorbell camera's the privacy issue? The ones the staunch individualist has no control over? Maybe. There's nothing that prevents other people from having a doorbell camera that doesn't violate privacy, except for the greed of large companies. Certainly most people do not install a doorbell camera with the intent to violate privacy, so it doesn't logically follow for me that doorbell cameras necessarily cause a privacy issue, not the least of which because I was able to set one up that does not cause a privacy issue. The privacy issue here isn't caused by your neighbors possibly having a recording of what you do on the public street, it's caused by a random person and a law enforcement agency and a data broker company in different parts of the world and with no relationship to you having a recording of what you did on the public street. The doorbell camera alone is fundamentally no different from your neighbor peering out the window or checking their peephole in the front door. The difference comes from the companies building systems /explicitly/ on the basis of capturing and trading/selling that data and embedding this in the products they offer to consumers. It does not have to be this way, and indeed there are product offerings that don't upload live streams of the all their video to the cloud to be snarfed up my data brokers, voyeurs, and police agencies. Remember, these are cameras pointed at a public street, so while there is a reasonable expectation that you have privacy from non-involved/non-present parties to your actions there, there is no such expectation of privacy from those who could reasonable observe you. Individuals who wish to keep their actions secret don't do them on the public street in broad daylight, and that has been true for millennia.

snarf21 5y ago

While correct, I think you are missing the point on doorbell cameras. Of course it doesn't require trusting Ring to not destroy your privacy by using their system. However, what percentage of people who want a doorbell camera are going to go through the work of setting up a local NVR. It is practically zero. I think the other issue is that if everyone else in your neighborhood does have a Ring, how does that not affect your privacy? Of course, Ring's business model is fear mongering and I'm not absolving them. But people will generally choose the path of least resistance. The fact that people want a camera to prevent a package from being stolen not because they want to create a police dragnet means almost nothing when the result of the camera sales creates an abusable police dragnet. And to be clear, some people actually do want to create the police dragnet because "other people" are scary. Spend 10 minutes on NextDoor and you will see lots of this.

nixpulvis 5y ago
To add to this... Even if you did setup a local CCTV monitoring system, how would I know you did that? It's completely fair to assume at this point that any camera watching you is syncing all of it's data with The Big Scary Cloud. I'm deeply offended that, even as I write this post, my office cameras are staring me in the face. We SHOULD NOT stand for this bullshit.

kodah 5y ago

Like you, I'm not sure how the article arrived at the cost of individualism is privacy. I'm very individualist (I guess?). I've been in a collectivist culture before (the military) and immediately one of the first things you become aware of is that the cost to collectivism is privacy. That could just be my experience, and really privacy may not be related to either, but more the values of the group. In individualism it's the average of how much each individual values privacy, where in collectivism the result is more a statement about the groups goals (or rather, the purpose for which they are collectivist.)

mbostleman 5y ago

Exactly. Consumer tech today from social media to hardware devices like doorbell cameras seem to only be able to exist (eg. funded) if they include collecting data on the user. Therein is the problem and there is no technical reason why tech x has to include spying features. But if there is no way to get tech x to market without them, then so be it. As an individualist myself, I am retreating rapidly in to not using tech. The last thing I would ever do is put an Amazon microphone in my kitchen or a Google camera on my door. I have switched to DDG and Brave. And as time allows, considering ways to use email and phones without being spied on. It's a sad state of affairs - not so much the market reality that privacy breaching is the primary monetization, but that not everyone else is like me and rejects it. The masses willingly swallow it.

HWR_14 5y ago

> Some folks, myself included, even have made the effort to use doorbell cameras that are not cloud connected and record video locally on NVR so that this data can't be shared without our explicit permission. Well, if a crime is committed in an area the police think your doorbell is viewing and you refuse to turn over any footage then they cops will serve you a warrant.