To the author's opening sentence - I also feel the definition of privacy can be difficult to pin down. I tend to think about privacy as a necessary prerequisite in most contexts to being authentic and truthful - consider what you would say about your employer in a public form versus what you would say to your partner or friend. It gets more complicated in online spaces, particularly when encryption enters. As social creatures, we have been evolving the nature of our non-digital interactions for a much longer time and we shouldn't expect that we can simply design ways of interacting that preserve the complicated nuances of real-life social interaction. However, as more of our activities move online, we can and must do better.
Privacy is the most important concept of our time
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Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#12This seems unpersuasive to me. I mean, privacy is good, sure, I agree with that much. But it's trying to pin too much on one concept. For example, this is a big part of the thesis:
> A clear example of the loss of privacy is the rise of violent rethoric.
And I think that's pretty clearly disproved by the fact that violent rhetoric is almost always deployed in closed, "private" communities. The more closed, the more violent (c.f. stormfront, 8chan, the occasional private facebook group) and the more public, the more moderated and reasonable[1] (c.f. here, or reddit, or twitter).
I can see an argument that the lack of privacy exacerbates differences. But it also cloisters extremism. And the essay needs to at least acknowledge that.
[1] Or at least "nonviolently unreasonable".
Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#13The author goes too far when they suggest there should be laws (and one imagines punishments for those who break them) that prevent something being shared in one space from being shared elsewhere. For example, if I share something with my family, there should be a law that prevents a family member from making what I said public. Not only would this be a nightmare to police but it would give rise to some anti-social o…
> don't we want to know
No, not your business. You're not supposed to know everything about everyone.
Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#14Privacy and the concept of property blur in the digital. This is interesting when taking the philosophy of natural laws and what a nation like USA is built upon (ideas of natural laws including property, defending life, and so on) Encryption is the only way to have property in the digital universe, however the mechanics of property and cost are also entirely different. Once it exists it’s costless to reproduce in sai…
I agree with your sentiment and I would also be interested to know more.
Economics hasn't really caught up with the situation of zero marginal cost enabled by computers and the internet. Surely there must be a better way than artificially limiting supply?
Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#15Not destroying our planet with GHG and rendering it inhospitable for millions of species, including humanity, is more important than a couple generations' data being spied on.
Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#16Not destroying our planet with GHG and rendering it inhospitable for millions of species, including humanity, is more important than a couple generations' data being spied on.
Fwiw - these two things are not as disentangled as one might think. Consider disinformation leading to the widespread climate change deniers.
Both are existential threats with high degrees of uncertainty.
Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#17Not destroying our planet with GHG and rendering it inhospitable for millions of species, including humanity, is more important than a couple generations' data being spied on.
Your comment is whataboutism and a false dichotomy. Both issues can be addressed simultaneously and independently. I mean it's laudable that you feel stronger about conservatism than privacy, but right now you seem under the impression that we can only pick one.
Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#18It's important but 'most important of our time'?
1984 was due to lack of privacy, without privacy you can be deprived of the first level of Maslow pyramid. What's more important?
Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#19No. I'd say there are a few things before. - notion of time - distance and space - experience - depth of social bonding and cultures - even magic and mysticism.. (in the days of full and unalterable data with logic processing)
The properties that which you describe are intrinsic to privacy as a feature in existence. To have privacy in a conversation in the physical world requires time, space, and experience.
These are very intrinsically-linked concepts.
Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
#20Not destroying our planet with GHG and rendering it inhospitable for millions of species, including humanity, is more important than a couple generations' data being spied on.
Your comment is whataboutism and a false dichotomy. Both issues can be addressed simultaneously and independently. I mean it's laudable that you feel stronger about conservatism than privacy, but right now you seem under the impression that we can only pick one.
The context is the title.