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Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

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Re: Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

#21

Post by em-bee »

slfnflctd wrote: post #4

I'd say actual human slavery - which I can easily imagine from extensive historical records - is probably worse. Yeah, mysterious data centers logging everything you do is scary, but have you ever been beaten bloody because you lacked the physical ability to pick the required cotton quota? Whoever wrote this title needs a serious dose of perspective. And to rewrite the title.

the big difference is that with slavery and related forms of inequality, the brutality is obvious. with privacy it isn't.

slavery has no future because once discovered, it's easily stopped today, and it will be even more easy in the future.

privacy violations on the other hand are much more difficult to discover and stop, if people are even aware of the problem. the real danger here is that your privacy is violated and you don't even know it.

Re: Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

#22

Post by GuB-42 »

Privacy inequality exists, and it goes the other way, at least in the west. In practice, the richer and more famous you are, the less privacy you have.

If you are rich, you are a target for everyone who wants a part of your money, from criminals to opportunists. Stars have their paparazzis. And even in their inside world, the rich typically have many people working for them. If you don't drive by yourself, your chauffeur knows where you are going, your accountant knows how you spend your money, your cook knows when and what you are eating, etc...

It has serious consequences. It very famously killed Diana for instance.

And think about "the fappening", where celebrity nudes leaked out. It is not the king of things that happen to average girls. I know someone who "revenge porned" his ex girlfriend, it didn't go far. She is pretty but average, and no one took interest. That's what protected her privacy.

The author mentioned things like targeted ads, where only the rich can opt out. Sure, but if you aren't rich, where is the big deal. Advertisers aren't after the money you don't have. Maybe some company have a lot of details about your life, but no one will really care. OTOH, the rich and famous have actual people tracking them constantly. The fortunes they spend for their privacy and security only gets them what we naturally have just by being average.

It is interesting to note that in 1984, the ones who enjoy the most privacy are the proles, the lower class.

Re: Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

#24

Post by borjamoya »

bilbo0s wrote: post #5

The article paints a pretty bleak picture, but it's even worse when we consider that even the author has bought in to privacy destroying narratives and technologies. I mean, the guy just posted an article on privacy inequality on a site that requires a third party login to discuss said article??? Don't even get me started on his belief that Elon Musk and companies like Tesla will be bulwarks against privacy inequalit…

I can log in with my email on Medium... You just sign in, they send you an email confirmation, and you're in.

Re: Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

#27

Post by Animats »

This is mostly a whiny article followed by an ad for the author's site which starts by wanting either your email or your money.

There are better advocates for stronger privacy. A good starting position is that the US needs something as strong as the EU's GDPR. With teeth. Might happen. See this Register article.[1]

We need a good event involving the privacy of some political official, preferably one on the right. The US got the Video Rental Privacy Act because Robert Bork's porno videotape rentals became public knowledge. Although that was weakened in 2013 due to Netflix lobbying.

[1] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/08/gdpr_usa_congressma...

Re: Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

#28

Post by pessimizer »

The idea that you can pay for privacy is a fantasy.

Just like in every surveillance state in the past, the people with the most privacy will be the people who are in charge of the surveillance. The people who will be the most monitored are the people who individuals in the surveillance apparatus want something from, or are offended and annoyed by. The civilian government reports to the surveillance apparatus in a surveillance state, not the other way around; and you probably won't even know the name of the person who really runs the country.

If you can see everything that people do, you can destroy them at will. If you can't find anything they've done, you can figure out something they could have done, and extortion easily provides eyewitnesses and covert agents in order to set people up. If necessary, you can extort necessary elements of the justice system to make the decisions you want, or just blatantly do what you want in total daylight, and make sure that nobody ever reports on it, no one is arrested, and witnesses are either securely threatened or disposed of in the same way.

It's depressing that we're arguing about whether public or private surveillance is worse, whether convenience or discounts are worth the exchange, or in this sadly gone awry "left" critique, whether there will be differences between the privacy of the rich and the poor.

Instead, maybe argue about why we've installed microphones every 10 feet that report to central servers in a way that cannot be audited. The technology is the enemy, it's just waiting for the right user.

Re: Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

#29

Post by rjf72 »

slfnflctd wrote: post #4

I'd say actual human slavery - which I can easily imagine from extensive historical records - is probably worse. Yeah, mysterious data centers logging everything you do is scary, but have you ever been beaten bloody because you lacked the physical ability to pick the required cotton quota? Whoever wrote this title needs a serious dose of perspective. And to rewrite the title.

While I do not necessarily agree with the article, I think it provides a reasonably solid argument explaining why your reaction is not necessarily as obvious as it might seem. The big deal about privacy is that it's not immediately obvious why having your privacy invaded is a particularly awful thing, which means that many people are not especially upset about it. The article gives the example of being able to analyze the mental health of a person through little more than a recording of their voice. Other recent progress includes being able to determine a person's sexuality from their face. As time progresses we're likely going to be able to determine more and more about people from entirely passive means.

This opens up the door to immense exploitation without people ever realizing they're being exploited. Imagine we create a world with 100 people that are identical in every way except for one. 5 of those people will receive tremendous amounts of information, updated in real time, about the other 95 people. It's not hard to see that those 5 will eventually be able to obtain complete power over the 95, if they should seek it. The worst part is that it will seem all, more or less, organic - even though the conclusion is practically predetermined.

In slavery the master-slave relation, and its inequity, was extremely visible and something clearly less than comforting to the senses. Aristotle mentions abolitionists in writings that are at least some 2,300 years old. Slavery persisted not for lack of opposition but because it was seen as a necessary evil by many. As Aristotle prophetically put it, "If the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves."

But the inequity of privacy is mostly invisible. Demands for privacy are still even seen as somewhat bizarrely eccentric. It's improbable that the 'masses' will begin to understand how valuable their own privacy is any time in the foreseeable future. And so they will pay a tremendous price for this, all without ever realizing it or being able to change the trajectory that they're on.

Re: Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

#30

Post by slavik81 »

Animats wrote: post #27

This is mostly a whiny article followed by an ad for the author's site which starts by wanting either your email or your money. There are better advocates for stronger privacy. A good starting position is that the US needs something as strong as the EU's GDPR. With teeth. Might happen. See this Register article.[1] We need a good event involving the privacy of some political official, preferably one on the right. The…

> The issue first surfaced during Bork`s confirmation hearings, when a Washington newspaper published lists of the judge`s video rentals during the last several years. The films were general releases such as ''Ruthless People,'' ''The Man Who Knew Too Much'' and ''A Day at the Races''; there were no X-rated rentals.

~Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1987 (source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-11-20-870327...)

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