Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

That is a fantastic quote. Thanks for posting it.

Why do I think privacy advocates have a list of 'secrets' they fear will be used against them? Because most of them are intelligent people who understand how society works. Society today is full of lies, secrets, and hypocrisy. If someone knows your secrets but you don't know theirs, you're probably vulnerable.

I don't think privacy advocates, and persons such as myself, differ in opinion on the problem today. The difference of opinion is on where we're trying to get to and how we get there.

Tbh, I don't know yet how to get to the end state I'd like to see.

It's not a zero sum game.

Good companies use information they collect to provide better services. Bad companies use it to rip people off. The problem of bad companies doing bad things is independent of companies having information about people.

OK, I guess I'm starting to get where you are coming from. I read your original post pretty much as saying that people who wish for privacy on the internet are wrong.

I still disagree with you, though. Yes, of course, technology alone cannot solve the political problems. But I very much think that technology can play a role in implementing and securing the political will. If you think of a democratic voting process as a piece of technology, for example, that by itself won't make a dictator go away. However, if there is a general consensus that democracy is the way to go, the specific implementation of the voting process very much makes a difference as to whether rogue actors can subvert this political will or not. If you make it so that votes cannot be bought and that the general public can watch the election from start to finish, that makes a democracy robust against a minority of people who try to rig the vote, for example.

I think information technology has a similar role to play in securing privacy. You can build systems that are far more robust against surveillance than facebook, for example. That doesn't help if the police comes after you for not using facebook--but it might prevent Mark Zuckerberg from figuring out how to manipulate the masses to vote for him as the next president ... or whatever he considers his interest ;-)

Also, I think the internet is actually a pretty good basis for that. In contrast to previous networks, at its basis, it doesn't distinguish between clients and servers, and it is a mostly transparent network with all the intelligence at the edge, so it's technically relatively easy to build your own protocols and applications without approval from network operators.

As for the internet being the real world: Yes, I get where you are coming from, but I think the distinction in this way is still counterproductive, as it supports a narrative that is used by the other side that implies that somehow the internet is special and that therefore human rights don't apply, and that special (and usually more restrictive) laws are necessary, as if laws that forbid fraud, say, for some reason didn't already apply if the fraud was committed via the internet.

"If you wish to examine a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon." — Bokonon (aka Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle)

Just because I mentioned specific individuals does not mean that I agree with them. I only acknowledge that they produced an effect that propagated beyond their own deaths through the actions of the devotees they acquired while living. I might also have mentioned prophets of various religions, though I may not follow any of them.

Skilled as I am at seeing the fnords, in the MLK address you quoted, under the obvious text, lies this subtext: Is my cause not great enough that you might be willing to die for it? If you are not, and have no greater cause to hold your loyalty, then you are more a walking corpse than a living man, and unworthy of my regard. It is very similar to "Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." It is a recruiting speech. And every time a young black person gets "the talk", it is contradicted. According to MLK, every time black kids submerge their will in a police encounter, and come away from it alive, but humiliated, they will be dead inside until their bodies finally catch up. According to me, they will live long enough to either vote in comprehensive reform or to organize and rebel from a dearth of it.

Nonviolent resistance depends in whole upon the oppressors' general unwillingness to murder nonviolent protesters. Willingness to die only works insofar as the opposition is unwilling to kill. Gandhi's protests worked only because British forces in India were unwilling to massacre Indians wholesale. MLK's protests worked only because the segregationists were unwilling to kill in public, before the typewriters and cameras of nationally-published journalists.

If you are willing to die, and the other is willing to kill you, you would be prudent to arrange your affairs in advance, such that other people are positioned to impose meaningful consequences as a result. Otherwise, you are gifting your enemy with a tiny victory.

If you quit a job in the military-industrial complex for which you have some ethical concerns, such as one which enables dragnet surveillance, what is the meaningful consequence? Every failing of the project in recent months is scapegoated to you. The contractor hires a replacement butt-in-seat. The work goes on. Your sacrifice yields nothing. No one rises in gratitude to pay your bills. When you mention in job interviews that you left due to ethical conflicts with the former employer, you never seem to be a good "cultural fit".

Why then would anyone choose to do that?

I'll take the food and the decades. I won't go willingly to my grave, if doing so wouldn't be more meaningful than what I believe I could accomplish with the entire remainder of my natural life. Sometimes, you can't avoid it, but you should always try to not die as you work towards your goals. Don't fear death, but don't ask it out on romantic dates, either.