4 ms·

> You have a person number and authorities store everything centrally. A big brother nightmare for Germans. Should be a big brother nightmare for all humans.

• iacvlvs 3y ago
  Why? There’s always a lot of hand-wringing and FUD around giving people ID numbers, but never a coherent rational argument. What makes it a big brother nightmare for all humans?
  • ben_w 3y ago
    Like all automation, having a database of your population greatly increases your efficiency, without regard to whether this power is used to do good or to do evil. There are many still alive who remember the evils done by the Stasi, when I was a child, there were many who remembered the evils done by the Gestapo; when those are your core examples of a citizen database, such thing naturally seems "big brother". The irony is the mirror image: America seems almost* totally willing to have private databases while disliking government ones, Europe seems almost* totally willing to have government databases while disliking private ones. * to anyone about to reply "not I": don't be blind to the "almost", I know many here will be exceptions
    • mharig 3y ago
      > Like all automation, having a database of your population greatly increases your efficiency Really? For what purposes exactly?
      • ben_w 2y ago
        All the things that surveys do but where surveys would be really slow, repetitive, and suffer sub-population sampling biases; and all the things that censuses do but with better temporal resolution.
        • mharig 2y ago
          Sorry, saw your answer just now. And you think that those fine granularities are really needed?
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• dntrkv 3y ago
  So having a health database, drivers license database, social security, banking etc are all ok but creating a proper national ID system would somehow push it over the edge to where an authoritarian government can come about and take control of our lives? Your argument boils down to “let’s purposely make our government inefficient because it might one day turn on us” Which, judging from other countries, is actually the opposite of what happens. The worst offenders of human rights and government overreach are the ones that don’t have their shit together.
  • mharig 3y ago
    Health data is a difficult topic. But for what do a drivers license database, social security numbers exist? And why should a country/state know your bank account number(s)? Etatism is cancer.
    • dntrkv 3y ago
      > But for what do a drivers license database, social security numbers exist? To keep bad drivers off the road? To suspend privileges when you kill someone with your car? Social security numbers were originally created for linking people to their social security accounts but has now become our national ID because there is an inherit need for one in the modern world. The problem with SSNs is that they were never designed for their current use-case. > And why should a country/state know your bank account number(s)? A state will always have access to and the capability of seizing your account funds. This is a necessity for a multitude of reasons that I can list out, but I'll let you use your imagination. Take a look around the world. Take a look at history. Autocrats don't need an efficient ID system to take control of their citizens. People willingly give up their freedoms and align themselves with autocrats when they use the same propaganda and fear-mongering tactics that have been used for centuries. It has nothing to do with the government amassing a database of their population. Once the autocrats are in control, they will create whatever system they require. The only way to avoid tyranny is to fight for liberal values at the ballot box. Anything else is bullshit. Your guns won't do shit when your local militia is aligned with the autocrat in control.