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I know we are getting off track here somewhat. But it's group A wants this data to better understand society in order to save lives, while every other group wan

by josho 4y ago

I know we are getting off track here somewhat. But it's group A wants this data to better understand society in order to save lives, while every other group want this data to increase their profits. To your point, yes we shouldn't allow tracking. But, whatever fix we apply should not be so limited that it only affects the CDC, it should be generally applied to stop all groups as well.

version_five 4y ago
> group A wants this data to better understand society in order to save lives In principle, I agree with the idea of anonymous data used exclusively and apolitically to "understand society" as you say. I just see no evidence that would ever be possible, either to trust that it will be kept anonymous or that whatever conclusion get drawn from it and acted upon will be remotely nonpartisan. It's sad in a sense, but I think the only viable solution is to reject any notion of tracking, no matter how much anyone swears they'll only use it for what they consider good. That said, I may be missing something but I still think it's less worrisome to hear that private companies are using information that customers didn't actively hide and provided by voluntarily using their product (I still don't like it, but I don't think it should be illegal for a company to say "we're giving you this tracking device", use it and get a discount). Compared with the government, given the whole "monopoly of violence" thing or whatever weaker version you like, and also as the agent of the people, to be using that data, I think is a whole different think. Same as there is a difference between an ISP logging your internet traffic, and one voluntarily giving that information to the government and effectively becoming a government agency. Anyway, this is going too far astray, and getting too long, you see my point about the distinction

by josho 4y ago

version_five 4y ago

> group A wants this data to better understand society in order to save lives In principle, I agree with the idea of anonymous data used exclusively and apolitically to "understand society" as you say. I just see no evidence that would ever be possible, either to trust that it will be kept anonymous or that whatever conclusion get drawn from it and acted upon will be remotely nonpartisan. It's sad in a sense, but I think the only viable solution is to reject any notion of tracking, no matter how much anyone swears they'll only use it for what they consider good. That said, I may be missing something but I still think it's less worrisome to hear that private companies are using information that customers didn't actively hide and provided by voluntarily using their product (I still don't like it, but I don't think it should be illegal for a company to say "we're giving you this tracking device", use it and get a discount). Compared with the government, given the whole "monopoly of violence" thing or whatever weaker version you like, and also as the agent of the people, to be using that data, I think is a whole different think. Same as there is a difference between an ISP logging your internet traffic, and one voluntarily giving that information to the government and effectively becoming a government agency. Anyway, this is going too far astray, and getting too long, you see my point about the distinction