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It's unsettling to see how irational people become when faced with the question of privacy. It is obvious that in the next 10 years, privacy will become frowne

It's unsettling to see how irational people become when faced with the question of privacy. It is obvious that in the next 10 years, privacy will become frowned upon. I personally see surveillance as progress, and am ready to embrace it. Feel free to ask me anything about that.

caskance 11y ago
What is it like being so brave?
- miguelrochefort 11y ago
  It's just common sense, really.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    It really isn't common sense, it is common but not sensical. Privacy is a great good and a lack thereof has vast implications none of which are beneficial to the whole of society. Privacy may be well worth the occasional death-by-terrorist or even the drug problem (which is far larger than terrorism). And who am I kidding, it's not as if the terrorists and the drug traffickers are the real target of this surveillance, it's basically the prelude to a statist future where any progressive will be 'on the radar' before they even realize they're worthy of the term.
    - caskance 11y ago
      If you choose to assume that privacy is inherently good, of course you will reach conclusions that say we should prioritize privacy over other things. Not really useful to people who recognize that privacy was nothing more than a temporary artifact of urbanization happening before widespread access to technology, and on the balance made people measurably less happy.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        Other people with far better writing skills than me have written entire tomes on the subject. This is a nice start: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/20/glenn-greenwald-privacy_n_5509704.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/20/glenn-greenwald-pri... As for privacy being nothing than a temporary artifact of urbanization and on the balance making people less happy: where do you get these conclusions? Do you honestly believe that before urbanization we didn't have meaningful privacy? Does the fact that you have privacy really make you less happy? How come?
        caskance 11y ago
        Just because someone has written a thing - and even gotten it published - doesn't mean there is any truth to what they have written. Otherwise your link could just be to my comment.
joshstrange 11y ago
Can you sum up in a sentence or two why you feel this way? EDIT: Parent edited post, used to saw something to the effect of: "I support surveillance AMA"
- miguelrochefort 11y ago
  Consider the alternative.
jokoon 11y ago
It can boil down to a metaphysical question about what is civilization and society, and how far the control goes. I get that government must protect citizens by reducing the amount of crime, just like parents would take care of their kids by controlling them at times. But if you want society to evolve and move forward, you have to let that slim amount of freedom in place. Creativity and opinions matter. It's not just preventing crime. The inevitable risk is that the government or corporations could use this information advantage, and not really prevent crime at all since criminal would be even more careful. It could turn into situations of black and white like in china where saying something would put you in trouble. Although it is true that the NSA should be able to investigate data when there is reasonable suspicion (a good example is finance, dealing with large amount of money should mean you're being monitored), I don't think it should be mandatory for all civilians. Civilization implies a social contract, but is it really a good idea to have more and more dependency and supervision by government ? I think not. And even if you have mandatory logging of data, it would still require a very tight access process to prevent abuse. The argument is dependency and how individuals behave when they know they might be under surveillance. It can have a dire consequence on the moral of society in general.
- miguelrochefort 11y ago
  I don't trust the government. I don't value surveillance as a tool to prevent crime. What I ultimately have a problem with is people's expectation of privacy. I believe that privacy contributes to a lot more harm than good, and I want it gone. Surveillance, while not quite the "total transparency" I want, contributes to that. I can't imagine a future in which keeping secrets is affordable or sustainable. It will keep getting harder as technology improves, and we should embrace that. The first step is to lower our reliance on privacy, and that's a step that very few people are ready to take or even consider. I believe this to be a problem. The challenge we're facing today is not "How can we maintain privacy?" but "How can we deal with reality?". That explains why I despise those that blindly seek privacy.
  - jokoon 11y ago
    I think you are confusing the intimate privacy of individuals and business secrecy. Privacy is about talking without restraint, giving an opinion you might be scared to tell in front of some people you don't trust entirely. For example, I recently had a one year class with a teacher, and the students really hated how detached the teacher was. They tried to tell him several times in nice manners, but he could not hear it, so they gave up. It was excruciating for them. They were fending for themselves while they was equipment, a nice room, and everyone was coming, but the teacher was so uninvolved in teaching and helping it was depressing. When a executive came to listen and write a take our opinions about the school program, the teacher could not be here, and it really made a difference, because they would not have spoken if he was there. This is privacy. You must be able to talk without fears. There are things that must be public, and other that must not. Feedback and opinions must be constantly made possible without fear of arguments, bad blood, firing, etc. I agree that corporate privacy/secrecy should not exist, and that there are many things like accounting that should be made public since there is no intimacy. There are many laws that make a difference between the intimate privacy of individuals and financial secrecy.

caskance 11y ago

What is it like being so brave?

miguelrochefort 11y ago
It's just common sense, really.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  It really isn't common sense, it is common but not sensical. Privacy is a great good and a lack thereof has vast implications none of which are beneficial to the whole of society. Privacy may be well worth the occasional death-by-terrorist or even the drug problem (which is far larger than terrorism). And who am I kidding, it's not as if the terrorists and the drug traffickers are the real target of this surveillance, it's basically the prelude to a statist future where any progressive will be 'on the radar' before they even realize they're worthy of the term.
  - caskance 11y ago
    If you choose to assume that privacy is inherently good, of course you will reach conclusions that say we should prioritize privacy over other things. Not really useful to people who recognize that privacy was nothing more than a temporary artifact of urbanization happening before widespread access to technology, and on the balance made people measurably less happy.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Other people with far better writing skills than me have written entire tomes on the subject. This is a nice start: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/20/glenn-greenwald-privacy_n_5509704.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/20/glenn-greenwald-pri... As for privacy being nothing than a temporary artifact of urbanization and on the balance making people less happy: where do you get these conclusions? Do you honestly believe that before urbanization we didn't have meaningful privacy? Does the fact that you have privacy really make you less happy? How come?
      - caskance 11y ago
        Just because someone has written a thing - and even gotten it published - doesn't mean there is any truth to what they have written. Otherwise your link could just be to my comment.

joshstrange 11y ago

Can you sum up in a sentence or two why you feel this way? EDIT: Parent edited post, used to saw something to the effect of: "I support surveillance AMA"

miguelrochefort 11y ago
Consider the alternative.

jokoon 11y ago

It can boil down to a metaphysical question about what is civilization and society, and how far the control goes. I get that government must protect citizens by reducing the amount of crime, just like parents would take care of their kids by controlling them at times. But if you want society to evolve and move forward, you have to let that slim amount of freedom in place. Creativity and opinions matter. It's not just preventing crime. The inevitable risk is that the government or corporations could use this information advantage, and not really prevent crime at all since criminal would be even more careful. It could turn into situations of black and white like in china where saying something would put you in trouble. Although it is true that the NSA should be able to investigate data when there is reasonable suspicion (a good example is finance, dealing with large amount of money should mean you're being monitored), I don't think it should be mandatory for all civilians. Civilization implies a social contract, but is it really a good idea to have more and more dependency and supervision by government ? I think not. And even if you have mandatory logging of data, it would still require a very tight access process to prevent abuse. The argument is dependency and how individuals behave when they know they might be under surveillance. It can have a dire consequence on the moral of society in general.

miguelrochefort 11y ago
I don't trust the government. I don't value surveillance as a tool to prevent crime. What I ultimately have a problem with is people's expectation of privacy. I believe that privacy contributes to a lot more harm than good, and I want it gone. Surveillance, while not quite the "total transparency" I want, contributes to that. I can't imagine a future in which keeping secrets is affordable or sustainable. It will keep getting harder as technology improves, and we should embrace that. The first step is to lower our reliance on privacy, and that's a step that very few people are ready to take or even consider. I believe this to be a problem. The challenge we're facing today is not "How can we maintain privacy?" but "How can we deal with reality?". That explains why I despise those that blindly seek privacy.
- jokoon 11y ago
  I think you are confusing the intimate privacy of individuals and business secrecy. Privacy is about talking without restraint, giving an opinion you might be scared to tell in front of some people you don't trust entirely. For example, I recently had a one year class with a teacher, and the students really hated how detached the teacher was. They tried to tell him several times in nice manners, but he could not hear it, so they gave up. It was excruciating for them. They were fending for themselves while they was equipment, a nice room, and everyone was coming, but the teacher was so uninvolved in teaching and helping it was depressing. When a executive came to listen and write a take our opinions about the school program, the teacher could not be here, and it really made a difference, because they would not have spoken if he was there. This is privacy. You must be able to talk without fears. There are things that must be public, and other that must not. Feedback and opinions must be constantly made possible without fear of arguments, bad blood, firing, etc. I agree that corporate privacy/secrecy should not exist, and that there are many things like accounting that should be made public since there is no intimacy. There are many laws that make a difference between the intimate privacy of individuals and financial secrecy.