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Even before the invention of public-private-partnership driven hyper-surveillance (aka social media), there were just three places known to western man where on

Even before the invention of public-private-partnership driven hyper-surveillance (aka social media), there were just three places known to western man where one is truly alone: In front of his steering wheel, inside of the voting booth and in the crapper.

smsm42 2y ago
Take the steering wheel out. Most modern cars are already networked and are capable of tracking your every movement and recording anything that happens inside and in the vicinity of the car. Not all of them do that, and not all of them preserve and forward this information, as of yet, but this is clearly a thing that will happen. Insurance companies already propose discounts for people that allow them to track their "driving habits", how long before it flips and you'd end up forced to let them record everything or be forced into the "dangerous and reckless driver" bucket where the insurance would be plain unaffordable? And that's not mentioning car manufacturers, which will record everything - for QA and performance monitoring purposes, of course - and then somehow this data end up on the market? I think if you need privacy, driving is no longer an option, better go for a walk in the forest.
- woodpanel 2y ago
  That’s correct. It even applies to the other segments I mentioned: Smart Toilets aren’t even necessary, as most people won’t sit on an analog one without their smartphone in their palms. And yeah, about the voting booth: many of those who now demand a right to be left alone just a couple of years ago vehemently defended the practice of proprietary voting machines.
ahofmann 2y ago
Even if this were true (and I don't think it is), it misses the point. Two decades ago, it was perfectly normal for people to be untraceable or unavailable in most ways when they were away from home. Today, it is normal for some people to send their location to loved ones in real time. And we all carry one or more devices that record tons of data about us and our surroundings every second.
- woodpanel 2y ago
  I think you’re missing the point I made: that applying a „right to be left alone“ was already scarce pre-digitalization.

smsm42 2y ago

Take the steering wheel out. Most modern cars are already networked and are capable of tracking your every movement and recording anything that happens inside and in the vicinity of the car. Not all of them do that, and not all of them preserve and forward this information, as of yet, but this is clearly a thing that will happen. Insurance companies already propose discounts for people that allow them to track their "driving habits", how long before it flips and you'd end up forced to let them record everything or be forced into the "dangerous and reckless driver" bucket where the insurance would be plain unaffordable? And that's not mentioning car manufacturers, which will record everything - for QA and performance monitoring purposes, of course - and then somehow this data end up on the market? I think if you need privacy, driving is no longer an option, better go for a walk in the forest.

woodpanel 2y ago
That’s correct. It even applies to the other segments I mentioned: Smart Toilets aren’t even necessary, as most people won’t sit on an analog one without their smartphone in their palms. And yeah, about the voting booth: many of those who now demand a right to be left alone just a couple of years ago vehemently defended the practice of proprietary voting machines.

ahofmann 2y ago

Even if this were true (and I don't think it is), it misses the point. Two decades ago, it was perfectly normal for people to be untraceable or unavailable in most ways when they were away from home. Today, it is normal for some people to send their location to loved ones in real time. And we all carry one or more devices that record tons of data about us and our surroundings every second.

woodpanel 2y ago
I think you’re missing the point I made: that applying a „right to be left alone“ was already scarce pre-digitalization.