4 ms·

> do what everybody else is doing Obligatory Godwin law reference aside, this logic has led to many historical problems

pyre 13y ago
Doing what everyone else is doing lowers social friction. We're discussing the idea of doing something while a child is young (posting about them online) that could haunt them later in life. If everyone is doing this, the social friction in the future will be less about having your childhood online. In this case, the social friction itself is what would be possibly causing issues in the future, so lowering it would be improving the situation. If you want to reference the Nazis, then it's the same thing. Doing what everyone was doing had lower social friction in Nazi Germany.
- gnaffle 13y ago
  If registering your religious affiliation in your identity papers was what everyone was doing, maybe it lowered social friction, but in the long run it caused huge problems for a certain group of people when the government suddenly started tracking them down, and had very good tools to do so. Whether or not this is a good or valid comparison, I think the argument about "if everyone are sharing, nobody will care" is plain wrong. In the right circumstances, it will always be possible to find some nugget of information to paint you in a bad light or cause you problems. Either way, it's going to be very interesting to watch our future politicians lives be completely exposed down to the smallest detail, as it may be 20-30 years from now.
jlgreco 13y ago
It also has countless unspoken successes every single day. I have eliminated a great deal of the social clutter and hassle in my life by making a conscious effort to do what other people are doing, unless I have a reason not to. Everyone else is dancing at a party? Dance as well, even if it isn't your thing. Nobody else wears sandals to work? Don't either. Everyone else is driving home from the bar? Well... actually you had to much, take a cab instead. Don't break the mold without a proper reason to. Now, are privacy issues going to come back and bit kids today in the ass? Maybe, I know I haven't always used my real name online, most people from my generation haven't. I figure that the kids who do are the ones breaking the mold now... I'm on the edge in that case.
mturmon 13y ago
Your allusion to the Holocaust demonstrates why this analogy is not helpful in this case, nor in most other cases. The comment specifically says "As a general rule, it's pretty safe...".
- gnaffle 13y ago
  Yep, that's the problem. As a general rule, driving without a seatbelt is also pretty safe.. until it's not. The question is whether the advantage you get from something is bigger than the potential consequences. I'd say, given the historical track record of governments during the last 100 years, that it's very gullible to believe that whatever future problems our current data sharing will cause will somehow be "fixed" and not have consequences just as long as it affects a critical mass of the population.
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    "I'd say, given the historical track record of governments during the last 100 years, that it's very gullible to believe that whatever future problems our current data sharing will cause will somehow be "fixed" and not have consequences just as long as it affects a critical mass of the population." For that matter, parts of our government like the NSA and the DEA consider the over-sharing of personal data on Facebook to be a useful source of exploitable information. They'd probably quietly lobby against any legislation to scale it back.
    - gnaffle 13y ago
      Exatly. A major argument used in the debate about new data retention laws in Europe was just this: That in face of changing subscription types like prepaid cards, the police needed data retention to still have access to the same data as before.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    Personally I do want to push them to be fixed if possible. I don't like real name policies, but I do consider anonymity only a workaround most of the time.

pyre 13y ago

Doing what everyone else is doing lowers social friction. We're discussing the idea of doing something while a child is young (posting about them online) that could haunt them later in life. If everyone is doing this, the social friction in the future will be less about having your childhood online. In this case, the social friction itself is what would be possibly causing issues in the future, so lowering it would be improving the situation. If you want to reference the Nazis, then it's the same thing. Doing what everyone was doing had lower social friction in Nazi Germany.

gnaffle 13y ago
If registering your religious affiliation in your identity papers was what everyone was doing, maybe it lowered social friction, but in the long run it caused huge problems for a certain group of people when the government suddenly started tracking them down, and had very good tools to do so. Whether or not this is a good or valid comparison, I think the argument about "if everyone are sharing, nobody will care" is plain wrong. In the right circumstances, it will always be possible to find some nugget of information to paint you in a bad light or cause you problems. Either way, it's going to be very interesting to watch our future politicians lives be completely exposed down to the smallest detail, as it may be 20-30 years from now.

jlgreco 13y ago

It also has countless unspoken successes every single day. I have eliminated a great deal of the social clutter and hassle in my life by making a conscious effort to do what other people are doing, unless I have a reason not to. Everyone else is dancing at a party? Dance as well, even if it isn't your thing. Nobody else wears sandals to work? Don't either. Everyone else is driving home from the bar? Well... actually you had to much, take a cab instead. Don't break the mold without a proper reason to. Now, are privacy issues going to come back and bit kids today in the ass? Maybe, I know I haven't always used my real name online, most people from my generation haven't. I figure that the kids who do are the ones breaking the mold now... I'm on the edge in that case.

mturmon 13y ago

Your allusion to the Holocaust demonstrates why this analogy is not helpful in this case, nor in most other cases. The comment specifically says "As a general rule, it's pretty safe...".

gnaffle 13y ago
Yep, that's the problem. As a general rule, driving without a seatbelt is also pretty safe.. until it's not. The question is whether the advantage you get from something is bigger than the potential consequences. I'd say, given the historical track record of governments during the last 100 years, that it's very gullible to believe that whatever future problems our current data sharing will cause will somehow be "fixed" and not have consequences just as long as it affects a critical mass of the population.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  "I'd say, given the historical track record of governments during the last 100 years, that it's very gullible to believe that whatever future problems our current data sharing will cause will somehow be "fixed" and not have consequences just as long as it affects a critical mass of the population." For that matter, parts of our government like the NSA and the DEA consider the over-sharing of personal data on Facebook to be a useful source of exploitable information. They'd probably quietly lobby against any legislation to scale it back.
  - gnaffle 13y ago
    Exatly. A major argument used in the debate about new data retention laws in Europe was just this: That in face of changing subscription types like prepaid cards, the police needed data retention to still have access to the same data as before.
- yuhong 13y ago
  Personally I do want to push them to be fixed if possible. I don't like real name policies, but I do consider anonymity only a workaround most of the time.