431–440 of 570 posts
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That argument doesn't work because some people are so conformist that every detail about their personal lives would be considered 100% unobjectionable to anyone they know or work for. (This is impossible when you know or work for diverse groups, but inside of a monoculture it's possible.)
Then just change the question to "Cool, can I take a look at your bank account details?"
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This is not a good analogy because if you speed on the highway you are putting other peoples lives at risk, and doing it in public. I think we probably should have a satellite tracking every car and issuing a ticket as soon as a car speeds.
> if you speed on the highway you are putting other peoples lives at risk If you drive at all you are theoretically putting other people's lives at risk. Everyone always has to exercise prudence when they drive in order to mitigate that risk. If their judgment is bad and they cause an accident, they are held legally liable for the harm they cause, and that gives people a strong incentive to not cause an accident. Tha…
So much of our society has rules and penalties because people are not very good at "exercising prudence". Instead we ask experts to think carefully about problems and set limits around what we should do so that we can all get along in a safe and peaceful society.
We don't allow doctors to practice surgery without a license and training. We don't allow tall buildings to be built without approvals. We mandate that a restaurant kitchen must be reasonably clean.
We need to have faith in our societies ability to set and review these rules and limits. If we can't trust the experts and the public servants we employ to enforce the rules, then we need to ask why not?
What we should _not_ do, is just blow off expert advice because its inconvenient or because somebody on Fox News told us to.
Why do we need all these analogies? Why not discuss real-life repercussions and pros cons of the choices before us, and based on that, decide what society we would rather live in?
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This is not a good analogy because if you speed on the highway you are putting other peoples lives at risk, and doing it in public. I think we probably should have a satellite tracking every car and issuing a ticket as soon as a car speeds.
That's complete BS. Speeds have not been updated to match the technical characteristics of modern cars. There's a reason why Germany doesn't even have a speed limit - the limit itself is pointless. They only fine you for dangerous driving.
If you want to convince your friends they should support encryption, here's how I like to get past the "nothing to hide" argument. Imagine we're sitting at a bar, chatting. None of us have anything to hide. Then the government passes a law that all conversations must be streamed on Youtube Live, so an agent comes in, sets up a camera at our table, and starts streaming. We still don't "have anything to hide". We're ju…
The concept of privacy and the consequences of not having it are too abstract for them. It is like saying that climate change will lead to disaster unless we all act now. They will only act after something bad happens to them personally.
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I like this argument. My normal response to "I have nothing to hide" is: "Cool, can I take a look at your browser search/reddit history?".
That argument doesn't work because some people are so conformist that every detail about their personal lives would be considered 100% unobjectionable to anyone they know or work for. (This is impossible when you know or work for diverse groups, but inside of a monoculture it's possible.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you speed on the highway you are putting other peoples lives at risk If you drive at all you are theoretically putting other people's lives at risk. Everyone always has to exercise prudence when they drive in order to mitigate that risk. If their judgment is bad and they cause an accident, they are held legally liable for the harm they cause, and that gives people a strong incentive to not cause an accident. Tha…
This is the same kind of self destructing thinking that has the US on the ropes right now. So much of our society has rules and penalties because people are not very good at "exercising prudence". Instead we ask experts to think carefully about problems and set limits around what we should do so that we can all get along in a safe and peaceful society. We don't allow doctors to practice surgery without a license and…
Speak for yourself.
> Instead we ask experts to think carefully about problems and set limits around what we should do so that we can all get along in a safe and peaceful society.
That's a nice myth, but it's not the reality. The reality is that governments use this power for purposes that have nothing to do with a safe and peaceful society.
> We need to have faith in our societies ability to set and review these rules and limits.
Sorry, but the track record of governments and "experts" is way too poor to justify any such faith.
> If we can't trust the experts and the public servants we employ to enforce the rules, then we need to ask why not?
And what if the answer is that either there simply are no actual experts in the problem domain, or there is no way for any actual experts to credibly communicate their expertise, because of principal-agent problems, conflicts of interest, and other inconvenient realities?
Because that is in fact the answer in most problem domains that are relevant to public policy.
> What we should _not_ do, is just blow off expert advice because its inconvenient or because somebody on Fox News told us to.
What we should also not do is treat people as experts just because they say they are. We should demand a track record of accurate predictions. Most so-called "experts" don't have one. That's just as true of the talking heads on CNN or MSNBC as the ones on Fox News.
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Somebody prove it by posting their email password. If we require encryption backdoors, the odds of it all ending up on Pastebin at some point is about the same.
hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars ********* see! -------- http://bash.org/?244321
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The best response is simpler than that, that even encryption laymen can understand: "If I have nothing to hide, then you have no reason to look."
That argument doesn't really work. You supposedly know whether you have "nothing to hide" (and don't dare to admit it if you do have something to hide), they need to look to check this.