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The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

thompson2026.com

11–20 of 179 posts

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#11
> And then comes the part they can't (or won't) fathom. The context shifts. The political winds change. The Overton window slams shut on a belief they once held. A book they read is declared subversive. A group they donated to is re-classified as extremist. A joke they told is now evidence of a thoughtcrime.

There are at least some people who would respond by (still) saying "I have nothing to hide." They are proud of their moral choices and confident in their convictions. Arrest them if you dare.

I wonder if the author still has contempt for them?

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#12

> And then comes the part they can't (or won't) fathom. The context shifts. The political winds change. The Overton window slams shut on a belief they once held. A book they read is declared subversive. A group they donated to is re-classified as extremist. A joke they told is now evidence of a thoughtcrime. There are at least some people who would respond by (still) saying "I have nothing to hide." They are proud of…

In many moral frameworks, inconsistency isn't the only wrong someone can commit. The argument constructed in this article is essentially utilitarian, making the claim that the mechanisms of surveillance and privacy make this behavior harmful to others, regardless of their intentions or internal sense of morality. In fact, the author doesn't mention hating these people at all, although I suppose that's not a completely unreasonable thing to infer. From the perspective of this argument, this only lacks the harm the "deviancy signal" would itself do to the individual, though in the oppressive regime proposed they would perhaps take greater risk by openly deviating

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#13
post #12

> And then comes the part they can't (or won't) fathom. The context shifts. The political winds change. The Overton window slams shut on a belief they once held. A book they read is declared subversive. A group they donated to is re-classified as extremist. A joke they told is now evidence of a thoughtcrime. There are at least some people who would respond by (still) saying "I have nothing to hide." They are proud of…

In many moral frameworks, inconsistency isn't the only wrong someone can commit. The argument constructed in this article is essentially utilitarian, making the claim that the mechanisms of surveillance and privacy make this behavior harmful to others, regardless of their intentions or internal sense of morality. In fact, the author doesn't mention hating these people at all, although I suppose that's not a completel…

> In fact, the author doesn't mention hating these people at all

The article opens with:

>> There's a special kind of contempt I reserve for the person who says, "I have nothing to hide."

Which isn't literally saying "I hate them" but I'm not sure how else to interpret "a special kind of contempt." Regardless, I've edited my original post.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#14
post #3

I disagree What really matters is judiciary due process and the legitimacy of a government. Companies are the ones gathering data, it's not the government doing it. Before the internet, governments already had data on their citizens. The internet makes it more difficult for the government to catch criminals and fraudsters. If you live in Russia or China or under Trump's administration, there are good reasons to hide.…

Could you post your internet browsing history there, please? Don't be short on details.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many moral frameworks, inconsistency isn't the only wrong someone can commit. The argument constructed in this article is essentially utilitarian, making the claim that the mechanisms of surveillance and privacy make this behavior harmful to others, regardless of their intentions or internal sense of morality. In fact, the author doesn't mention hating these people at all, although I suppose that's not a completel…

> In fact, the author doesn't mention hating these people at all The article opens with: >> There's a special kind of contempt I reserve for the person who says, "I have nothing to hide." Which isn't literally saying "I hate them" but I'm not sure how else to interpret "a special kind of contempt." Regardless, I've edited my original post.

Contempt is very different to hate.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#16
"I have nothing to hide" only makes sense if privacy and disclosure are treated as a binary. In reality, both exist on a spectrum: privacy is controlled disclosure, shaped by what is shared, with whom, at what level of detail, and under what power asymmetry.

Large surveillance systems inevitably build baselines. They don't just detect crimes; they detect patterns and anomalies relative to whatever becomes "normal".

The problem with "nothing to hide" is that it defaults to maximal disclosure. Data is persistent, aggregatable, and reinterpretable as norms and regimes change. The data doesn't.

This isn't purely individual. Your disclosures can expose others through contact graphs and inference, regardless of intent. And it doesn't matter whether the collector is the state or a company; aggregation and reuse work the same way.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#17
ok, as a privacy enthusiast, some people just dont get it, and they never will. what you need to do is not discuss anything you dont want broadcast with them... ever. im even thinking of using edge or chrome so i look like a normie in a sea of normies. i mean i really dont have anything to hide but i dont want anyone to know that.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, the author doesn't mention hating these people at all The article opens with: >> There's a special kind of contempt I reserve for the person who says, "I have nothing to hide." Which isn't literally saying "I hate them" but I'm not sure how else to interpret "a special kind of contempt." Regardless, I've edited my original post.

Contempt is very different to hate.

It is very interesting, in our polarized times, what people read into a statement, and if they interpret it charitably or in the worst possible way. Like you, I find contempt and hate very different.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#19

ok, as a privacy enthusiast, some people just dont get it, and they never will. what you need to do is not discuss anything you dont want broadcast with them... ever. im even thinking of using edge or chrome so i look like a normie in a sea of normies. i mean i really dont have anything to hide but i dont want anyone to know that.

I've got lots to hide.

Doesn't mean you or anyone else has a right to know what it is and it doesn't mean I'm doing anything wrong either. We should all admit that we have lots we want to hide from other people and that's just fine and normal.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#20

There's a special kind of contempt I reserve for the person who says, "I have nothing to hide." It's not the gentle pity you'd have for the naive. It's the cold, hard anger you hold for a collaborator. Because these people aren't just surrendering their own liberty. They're instead actively forging the chains for the rest of us. They are a threat, and I think it's time they were told so. Their argument is a "patholog…

Hannah Arendt in her most famous television interview after the Eichman process said what shocked her in 1933 when the Nazis came to power wasn't that the Nazis came to power, it was how many of the people she preceived as friends and allies, especially in the intellectual space would convince themselves with fantastical theories about why Hitler being in power might be a good thing actually.

The truth is that many people are cowards and even more people are just small-minded. The problem of the "I have nothing to hide"-excuse is that it shows thst this person has no concept about how their small personal ideas would affect the world once you roll them out in scale. Not only that but it shows that they haven't understood how power is organized in their democratic societies.

Let's say we would have nothing to hide and we give up our rights to the people we as the voters are meant to hold accountable. Even if it is a benevolent government filled with honest actors, large scale surveillance has the problem that there will be false positives. Surveil 360 million people each day and with an totally utopic accuracy of 99% and you still get 3.6 million false positives a day. In reality however these processes are much less accurate and the people who use those powers much less benevolent and honest, e.g. it is not uncommon that police look up their exes, spouses, people they personally hate etc.

The biggest problem however is that we have a division of power for a reason in democracies, and the people who vote giving up power in order to give more to a government is bad actually. Democracies need to be designed in such way they can survive one or two governments that try to abolish that system. Giving them a "spy on everybody" -power coupled with let's say secret courts is a good way to risk that form of government for generations who then have to fight bloody civil wars and revolutions to get the power back.

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