Privacy is the most important concept of our time

Off the top of my head:

- It could be in the interest of a government to make sure people aren't spreading what they would consider disinformation

- It is then in the government's interest to prevent the spread of disinformation, perhaps to identify those spreading it or those who may be inclined to spread it

- It's not a stretch then to consider that it could be in the interest of government, particularly one with malicious or authoritarian intent, to tap into private conversations of people suspected of spreading disinformation.

I find it particularly concerning, because I assume that what people within a society would consider disinformation is 1) inconsistent, 2) ephemeral.

I might have been unclear on this aspect. My point was that privacy can affect other rights in complex ways, including, as a way of example, freedom of speech.

In the example I was talking about in the article, I was trying to say that nowadays people have different norms and opinions on what is fair. That is great, however this means that without privacy I can hurt you simply by sharing something about you with a a certain community. For instance, I can take something you said in private, or one fact about you (i.e., you are a member of party X, or have a certain sexuality, or belong to a certain religion) and share with a community that will misinterpret or attack you for that.

In the past we allowed the press to violate privacy of important people for something nefarious (i.e., they hunt people for sport). Now everybody has the power to violate privacy of anybody for any reason they see fit.

So, now maybe we should forbid everyone to violate the privacy of anyone, otherwise we will lose freedom of speech, because will be afraid to say anything for fear of being taken out of context. Maybe we should all agree that if you disagree with somebody you cannot call a mob to defend your opinion, but you should call them with your speech. That is not an obvious choice to make. As others have commented, what about actually powerful people? Just disagreeing with them will not change their opinion, because they are more powerful than you. So, I am not saying that is easy to understand what to do, but that privacy can actually change how we use other rights.

“You can’t make another Facebook... Competition is impossible”

Facebook solves multiple problems for users, but if we just focus on community...

I’m seeing people adopt solutions like Discord and Slack as Facebook alternatives .

Climate change is a slow process. Technology is fast enough to catch up with it and solve it, since it's mostly a technological problem.

Privacy is a social problem. Automation is too(And my guess in the near future, it would be a much bigger problem).

Social problems get resolved very slowly, if at all. So those 2 seem more worrysome.

Anyone who believes the above simply hasn't looked at the numbers. The speed at which we need to reduce emissions simply dwarfs anything technology has ever achieved - not to mention the fact that so far, technological progress has always had the net effect of adding to GHG emissions.

Let's take the example of the digital industry. Arguably, it's shown the most impressive trajectory of energy efficiency, with an exponential growth sustained over many decades, roughly gaining 3 orders of magnitude every 16 years (See Koomey's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koomey%27s_law#:~:text=Koomey'....).

But overall, what's the currently worst-offending industry in terms of GHG emissions / energy consumption growth? The digital industry! Our unmoderated consumption grows even faster than energy efficiency gains, to the point that it's the only major industry in which the energy intensity of added value is increasing.

(Many sources here: https://theshiftproject.org/en/lean-ict-2/)

We do need a lot of technological investments, but the narrative that says this will be sufficient is a very dangerous mirage. Please, be responsible, do your research, and don't spread ignorance - our children will have to bear the burden.