3 ms·

> Can someone steelman the argument against one-party consent? I literally can't think of any reason anyone would want it, other than wanting to be able to lie

> Can someone steelman the argument against one-party consent? I literally can't think of any reason anyone would want it, other than wanting to be able to lie about what they said later. Are you actually asking hackernews, in a thread about banning encryption, why "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" is not a good justification for being monitored without your consent?

josephcsible 3y ago
I don't consider it "being monitored" when the person you're talking to is the one doing the recording. Contrast "I'm legally allowed to keep emails sent to me after I first read them" with "other people are legally allowed to read emails sent to me". Wouldn't almost everyone agree that the former is a good thing but the latter would be a bad thing?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > don't consider it "being monitored" when the person you're talking to is the one doing the recording Compromise is reached in quiet, safe places. Politicians make bombastic statements for their base and donors, and then go behind closed doors to negotiate. You can't negotiate in earnest if every offer for compromise you put forward immediately results in (a) the losers of that compromise creating a ruckus and (b) your opponent using (a) to weaken you. Public negotiations reward playing to the audience. (You see this in small groups–letting leaders or the people in a friend group who disagree pull aside almost always solves the problem better than litigating it as a group.) If every conversation might be recorded for replaying to a third party, then every conversation will be treated as an open one. That destroys room for compromise.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    This seems like a weak argument since compromise may be more difficult, but it certainly isn't impossible when conversations are transparent. Eventually the "losers" of a compromise are going to learn about how their elected officials voted and what the impact of that vote will be for them, and they'll hold their elected officials accountable for it regardless. It just isn't worth forcing every person to give up the ability to protect themselves by recording their everyday conversations just so that politicians can lie to the public and their donors while screwing over the people behind closed doors.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      Legislative deliberation, i.e. hashing out details, should be open [1]. At the bargaining phase, when you're working out high-level frameworks, the theory says closed doors win [2]. (Put another way, in a transparent bargaining environment, the winning move is to ignore your opponent and beat your drums to your base.) > Eventually the "losers" of a compromise are going to learn about how their elected officials voted The point is to let both sides table ideas without having to face the downside. To propose what if scenarios to the other side. [1] https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets/orp/resource/item/5dab57a5a6490200117d29bc/original/does-transparency-inhibit-political-compromise.pdf https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets... [2] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/225/1/open-door8.pdf https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/225/1/open-door8.pdf
  - the8472 3y ago
    That cuts two ways. If everything they said was on the record there would be no point in putting on a show since it will immediately turn out the show is all fake. Imagine if politicians acted like normal people, negotiating things in nuance instead of being showmen.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - jltsiren 3y ago
      Don't blame the politicians. Blame the people who have opinions. The public debate is so dominated by bad-faith arguments that it's not productive to treat it as a real debate. Until the social consequences of arguing in bad faith are severe enough, all meaningful political discussion must happen off the record.
  - nordsieck 3y ago
    > Compromise is reached in quiet, safe places. Politicians make bombastic statements for their base and donors, and then go behind closed doors to negotiate. That may be. But corruption also festers in quiet safe places. It's not clear to me that the the tradeoff is worth it.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > corruption also festers in quiet safe places. It's not clear to me that the the tradeoff is worth it. Public legislating, private bargaining [1]. This keeps substantive deliberation in the public domain while the horse trading, the job republics delegate to elected representatives, has a limited space within which it can efficiently engage. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36037530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36037530
- dabluecaboose 3y ago
  Okay, fair enough. I was so focused on my own perception of privacy that it hadn't occurred to me that the person I'm talking to has every right to record the conversation just as much as they do to remember it. Speaking as someone who often has to tell people "Email that to me or I won't remember it", I can see the utility without it being intrusive.
  - hunter2_ 3y ago
    The main difference is that if they remember it and tell someone else, it's hearsay, but if they record it and play it for someone else, it's evidence. At least until deepfakes ruin that idea and make the two equivalently refutable.
hunter2_ 3y ago
You seem to be referring to zero-party consent, which yes HN would tend not to want. I think most of HN would be into one-party consent, meaning you can time shift that which you already had the ability to hear (and therefore let third parties hear it, without knowledge of the other original party).
Manuel_D 3y ago
The police already have the ability to monitor you without consent. One party consent lets people record their own conversations and push back against false allegations about what they did or did not say.

josephcsible 3y ago

I don't consider it "being monitored" when the person you're talking to is the one doing the recording. Contrast "I'm legally allowed to keep emails sent to me after I first read them" with "other people are legally allowed to read emails sent to me". Wouldn't almost everyone agree that the former is a good thing but the latter would be a bad thing?

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> don't consider it "being monitored" when the person you're talking to is the one doing the recording Compromise is reached in quiet, safe places. Politicians make bombastic statements for their base and donors, and then go behind closed doors to negotiate. You can't negotiate in earnest if every offer for compromise you put forward immediately results in (a) the losers of that compromise creating a ruckus and (b) your opponent using (a) to weaken you. Public negotiations reward playing to the audience. (You see this in small groups–letting leaders or the people in a friend group who disagree pull aside almost always solves the problem better than litigating it as a group.) If every conversation might be recorded for replaying to a third party, then every conversation will be treated as an open one. That destroys room for compromise.
- autoexec 3y ago
  This seems like a weak argument since compromise may be more difficult, but it certainly isn't impossible when conversations are transparent. Eventually the "losers" of a compromise are going to learn about how their elected officials voted and what the impact of that vote will be for them, and they'll hold their elected officials accountable for it regardless. It just isn't worth forcing every person to give up the ability to protect themselves by recording their everyday conversations just so that politicians can lie to the public and their donors while screwing over the people behind closed doors.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    Legislative deliberation, i.e. hashing out details, should be open [1]. At the bargaining phase, when you're working out high-level frameworks, the theory says closed doors win [2]. (Put another way, in a transparent bargaining environment, the winning move is to ignore your opponent and beat your drums to your base.) > Eventually the "losers" of a compromise are going to learn about how their elected officials voted The point is to let both sides table ideas without having to face the downside. To propose what if scenarios to the other side. [1] https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets/orp/resource/item/5dab57a5a6490200117d29bc/original/does-transparency-inhibit-political-compromise.pdf https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets... [2] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/225/1/open-door8.pdf https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/225/1/open-door8.pdf
- the8472 3y ago
  That cuts two ways. If everything they said was on the record there would be no point in putting on a show since it will immediately turn out the show is all fake. Imagine if politicians acted like normal people, negotiating things in nuance instead of being showmen.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jltsiren 3y ago
    Don't blame the politicians. Blame the people who have opinions. The public debate is so dominated by bad-faith arguments that it's not productive to treat it as a real debate. Until the social consequences of arguing in bad faith are severe enough, all meaningful political discussion must happen off the record.
- nordsieck 3y ago
  > Compromise is reached in quiet, safe places. Politicians make bombastic statements for their base and donors, and then go behind closed doors to negotiate. That may be. But corruption also festers in quiet safe places. It's not clear to me that the the tradeoff is worth it.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > corruption also festers in quiet safe places. It's not clear to me that the the tradeoff is worth it. Public legislating, private bargaining [1]. This keeps substantive deliberation in the public domain while the horse trading, the job republics delegate to elected representatives, has a limited space within which it can efficiently engage. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36037530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36037530
dabluecaboose 3y ago
Okay, fair enough. I was so focused on my own perception of privacy that it hadn't occurred to me that the person I'm talking to has every right to record the conversation just as much as they do to remember it. Speaking as someone who often has to tell people "Email that to me or I won't remember it", I can see the utility without it being intrusive.
- hunter2_ 3y ago
  The main difference is that if they remember it and tell someone else, it's hearsay, but if they record it and play it for someone else, it's evidence. At least until deepfakes ruin that idea and make the two equivalently refutable.

hunter2_ 3y ago

You seem to be referring to zero-party consent, which yes HN would tend not to want. I think most of HN would be into one-party consent, meaning you can time shift that which you already had the ability to hear (and therefore let third parties hear it, without knowledge of the other original party).

Manuel_D 3y ago

The police already have the ability to monitor you without consent. One party consent lets people record their own conversations and push back against false allegations about what they did or did not say.