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I feel like this argument is not productive for improving privacy because it suggests we shouldn't try. I think improving privacy is incremental and these impro

• notriddle 5y ago
  The end point of the argument is that there is no such thing as individual privacy. Privacy is defined by the ability to distinguish people, even if it’s just process of elimination (you know that all but one of the houses on the block has a smart oven, and you can figure out that somebody in the block turned an oven on based on the minute changes in natural gas pressure, therefore you can spy on that last person almost as effectively as if they had installed a smart oven themselves). Either everybody is private, or nobody is. There is no such thing as “f u, got mine” here. Privacy is inherently a collective problem, so it must be solved by political means, not by individual choices.
  • circularfoyers 5y ago
    While I do agree that fundamentally the issue needs to be tackled on a political level, I don't agree that individual changes don't impact that individual. I don't think it's possible (for most) to have complete privacy, but I don't think any (or very few) even want that, they just want more control over it. They don't want people they don't even know, to know more about them than people they do know. Before the changes are (if they ever are) made from a political level, it's possible to take steps to have more control over what information is collected.