Ask HN: So what if my personal information gets stolen?

You need to think more carefully about your position. Your statement makes it seem like you are ignorant of history. People have been imprisoned and killed for their correspondence. It is still happening in the world today.

> David Brin explains it

"Brin spends an entire chapter exploring how important some degree of privacy is for most human beings, allowing them moments of intimacy, to exchange confidences, and to prepare - in some security - for the competitive world."

Brin doesn't agree that it's a good idea for everyone to see your letters, bank balance, and other personal secrets. It seems like you got the wrong idea about his book.

> I think the transition to a transparent society is inevitable.

You haven't explained or justified this idea at all.

The problem with your concept of absolute zero privacy is competition. As long as privacy can be exploited, as long as a lack of privacy can be used against you in any way, the need for privacy will exist.

The idea you have that privacy could go away can only happen if all humans are cooperative, and economic systems based on competition are eliminated. We can't have absolute transparency and Capitalism at the same time. We can't have politics or business either. Absolute transparency works for fictional races like the Borg on Star Trek. What you're talking about seems like a theoretical concept that is divorced from reality.

Current trends are in the opposite direction, so what makes you think we're on the way? Business is getting more competetive, not less. Societies are getting more political, not less. In some countries, government and human rights abuses have been regressing. The need for privacy is going up, not down.

> I think it's a good idea to let everyone else see my bank balance ...

You didn't explain why. Why is it a good idea? Do you want to post all that information here and now? Why aren't you publishing it already if it's a good idea?

Your purchase history is just one of many examples of something that is being used against you. There are insurance companies buying personal data like purchase history in order to gather evidence for denials on claims.

Do these people deserve to be the focus of all discrimination? It seems to me that privacy is necessarily misleading and unfair.

How do you suggest we fix that?

I am aware that people have been imprisoned and killed for their correspondence. I think we should blame the perpetrators, not the free flow of information.

> Brin doesn't agree that it's a good idea for everyone to see your letters, bank balance, and other personal secrets. It seems like you got the wrong idea about his book.

That's possible. I didn't read the book.

> The problem with your concept of absolute zero privacy is competition. As long as privacy can be exploited, as long as a lack of privacy can be used against you in any way, the need for privacy will exist.

All knowledge can be exploited. All knowledge can be used against people. I don't think that's a problem, and I don't think that can be changed.

> The idea you have that privacy could go away can only happen if all humans are cooperative, and economic systems based on competition are eliminated. We can't have absolute transparency and Capitalism at the same time. We can't have politics or business either. Absolute transparency works for fictional races like the Borg on Star Trek. What you're talking about seems like a theoretical concept that is divorced from reality.

I don't claim that we could switch to full transparency tomorrow. I suggest that we accept the limitations of privacy, and work toward a society that's compatible with more transparency. I think less competition and politics would be welcome.

> Current trends are in the opposite direction, so what makes you think we're on the way? Business is getting more competetive, not less. Societies are getting more political, not less. In some countries, government and human rights abuses have been regressing. The need for privacy is going up, not down.

The world is getting worse in some ways, and I think that privacy enables that. Privacy is a self fulfilling need. The more we expect and rely on it, the more dangerous it becomes, the more we need. That's not good.

> You didn't explain why. Why is it a good idea? Do you want to post all that information here and now? Why aren't you publishing it already if it's a good idea?

Again, society is not ready yet. It won't be ready until we all put a lot of work into changing things. The first step is to convince idealists that total transparency is more desirable than total privacy.

> Your purchase history is just one of many examples of something that is being used against you. There are insurance companies buying personal data like purchase history in order to gather evidence for denials on claims.

If your purchase history is evidence that you violated the terms of the contract, I think it's fair. Likewise, if it makes it possible to give discounts to people who take care of whatever is insured, that's great.

> Do you understand why the right to privacy currently exists?

Yes, I understand why it exists.

> The fact that there are problems with privacy doesn’t mean it makes any sense whatsoever to just get rid of privacy. Should we get rid of water because some people have drowned? Should we eliminate math because it’s hard and people sometimes make mistakes?

"The fact that there are problems with [transparency] doesn’t mean it makes any sense whatsoever to just get rid of [transparency]."

> When privacy leaks and abuses cause people suffering or damage, the answer isn’t less privacy, it’s more. Plug the leak, don’t open the floodgate.

It's like increasing the dosage of medication as your body gets used to it. I'd rather not have to take medication if possible.

I want people to change their diet to prevent or reverse diabetes. You want to create more artificial insulin. I don't think artificial insulin is bad, as it clearly helps a lot of people today (and more people every year), but I don't think the discussion should only be about creating more artificial insulin and making sure everyone can have some. We should think about fixing the root cause, and lessen our reliance on artificial insulin.

I totally get your point. Do you get mine?