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With time privacy is getting more and more difficult to the point where I'm not sure you can/will have real privacy living life normally so releasing the dirty

With time privacy is getting more and more difficult to the point where I'm not sure you can/will have real privacy living life normally so releasing the dirty laundry of everyone will even the playing field to where everyone's at least a bit of a freak but we hopefully just accept it since we're also not who we are on Linkedin. While true privacy is probably optimal I've been quite curious about the idea of a "no privacy society" recently and the more I think about it the less of a terrible idea it seems if it keeps getting more and more difficult to maintain privacy for normal people and especially in the realm of politics. If you know everything about the people high up they can't really be blackmailed and I'm not really sure anyone would care that big shot X enjoys gambling or some kinky sex once in a while. tl;dr: If privacy is/gets impossible to maintain for normal people it might be worth just displaying everyone's dirty laundry so no one can pretend they're saints from their elaborate privacy castle. No idea how you'd go about implementing it realistically. It's mostly a shower thought. Does anyone know any good discussions in that direction?

vv_ 2y ago
> If you know everything about the people high up This is a law for the peasantry not the nobility. Due to international treaties (e.g. Five Eyes) it'll allow federal agencies in the United States to spy on US citizens using the UK as proxy. The greatest irony is that Western societies are slowly becoming the dystopia they once accused China of being and evidently nobody cares.
- Lanolderen 2y ago
  Yeah. That's the implementation issue. It'd need to go top->down somehow. And I wouldn't say nobody cares. It's just that a lot of what's happening is quite technical for normal people and in many countries you can't even really do much about it. At this point you're getting bent over by your government, other peoples governments, awkward techbros with visions, weirdos with business plans, etc..
  - vv_ 2y ago
    > It's just that a lot of what's happening is quite technical for normal people What's the point of news media if not to explain these issues to the general public in a way they can understand? If we lived in a free and open society that values personal privacy and opposes government overreach, this would be prime-time news, plastered across the front pages of every newspaper. I don't see a practical difference between what's happening here and what's happening in China, except that the Western world is considerably more nuanced in how it controls the (global) narrative. We've been living in an Orwellian nightmare for a long time.
    - InkBloomfield 2y ago
      The news media is in many cases simply stenographers for the state/government/corporate interests.
marcus_holmes 2y ago
I've lived in a small island community where everyone knows each other's business, and it's not too bad. But it does take a certain type of personality to be happy with it. A lot of humans are not comfortable with everyone knowing everything about them. And it's not everyone else knowing my business that I'm worried about. It's the government. Imagine that the UK ends up with someone like Trump in charge, and they push for a law that says "anyone criticising me or my decisions will be fined". In a world with E2E that is impossible. In the world the UK spy services want to build, this is routine. Privacy is good for democracy

vv_ 2y ago

> If you know everything about the people high up This is a law for the peasantry not the nobility. Due to international treaties (e.g. Five Eyes) it'll allow federal agencies in the United States to spy on US citizens using the UK as proxy. The greatest irony is that Western societies are slowly becoming the dystopia they once accused China of being and evidently nobody cares.

Lanolderen 2y ago
Yeah. That's the implementation issue. It'd need to go top->down somehow. And I wouldn't say nobody cares. It's just that a lot of what's happening is quite technical for normal people and in many countries you can't even really do much about it. At this point you're getting bent over by your government, other peoples governments, awkward techbros with visions, weirdos with business plans, etc..
- vv_ 2y ago
  > It's just that a lot of what's happening is quite technical for normal people What's the point of news media if not to explain these issues to the general public in a way they can understand? If we lived in a free and open society that values personal privacy and opposes government overreach, this would be prime-time news, plastered across the front pages of every newspaper. I don't see a practical difference between what's happening here and what's happening in China, except that the Western world is considerably more nuanced in how it controls the (global) narrative. We've been living in an Orwellian nightmare for a long time.
  - InkBloomfield 2y ago
    The news media is in many cases simply stenographers for the state/government/corporate interests.

marcus_holmes 2y ago

I've lived in a small island community where everyone knows each other's business, and it's not too bad. But it does take a certain type of personality to be happy with it. A lot of humans are not comfortable with everyone knowing everything about them. And it's not everyone else knowing my business that I'm worried about. It's the government. Imagine that the UK ends up with someone like Trump in charge, and they push for a law that says "anyone criticising me or my decisions will be fined". In a world with E2E that is impossible. In the world the UK spy services want to build, this is routine. Privacy is good for democracy