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The tl;dr is that arguments against privacy generally focus on not having anything to hide if you aren't doing anything wrong. In reality, it's a lot more complicated. Loss of privacy can cause a great deal of harm even when you haven't done anything wrong.
If you think privacy is useless, please reply to this comment by posting: - Your name, address, phone number - Your place of employment, income from all sources, net worth and valuation of your major assets (house, car, investments, etc.) - All your social media accounts (please make sure that all information you've ever posted there is publicly accessible) - Your credit card numbers, bank account numbers, social sec…
I wish I could be open about all these things. I really do. Unfortunately, society currently expects us to keep some information private. A lot of things, such as private-key cryptography, actually rely on this very secrecy.
Privacy sustains an intolerance that prohibits me from sharing this information publicly. This is the precise reason why I think we should get away from privacy.
There's few things I want more than being able to be 100% honest with myself and others, and never have to tell another lie, but this won't be possible as long as we value privacy so much.
Here is the best explanation I have seen of the issue: http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127... The tl;dr is that arguments against privacy generally focus on not having anything to hide if you aren't doing anything wrong. In reality, it's a lot more complicated. Loss of privacy can cause a great deal of harm even when you haven't done anything wrong.
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of things to hide. But the only reason I have to hide them is becaues society expects me to do so.
In a more transparent society, people would be much more tolerant.
Privacy makes some people feel more comfortable. There doesn't need to be anything more to it than that. There might still be situations where their privacy has to be balanced against some other consideration, but it's unlikely that a universal denial of privacy would be necessary to find the balance.
You also have to consider all the negative sides of privacy. All the lost potential. I'm actually convinced that privacy cause much more harm than good.
How do you feel about the fact that your privacy cause me discomfort?
Privacy makes some people feel more comfortable. There doesn't need to be anything more to it than that. There might still be situations where their privacy has to be balanced against some other consideration, but it's unlikely that a universal denial of privacy would be necessary to find the balance.
A lot of things make people "feel more comfortable". Yet, you probably don't think all these things should be encouraged or become rights. You also have to consider all the negative sides of privacy. All the lost potential. I'm actually convinced that privacy cause much more harm than good. How do you feel about the fact that your privacy cause me discomfort?
One reason is that exposing some forms of personal information can lead to discrimination. For instance, access to private medical records or to genetic information may allow insurance companies to discriminate against people they believe might be predisposed to certain health risks. Additionally, there is a reason why people don't like revealing things about themselves (like their salaries, for example): it opens th…
Prejudice, which is central to discrimination, is usually a consequence of limited information. The less you know, the easier it is to generalize. When you know everything, "discrimination" becomes facts.
> For instance, access to private medical records or to genetic information may allow insurance companies to discriminate against people they believe might be predisposed to certain health risks.
Rightly so. Likewise, healthy people could have better rates.
> Additionally, there is a reason why people don't like revealing things about themselves (like their salaries, for example): it opens them up to judgment and allows society to comment on how they rank hierarchically within a certain community.
Again, how is that a problem? Do you have a plan to help poor people afford nice clothes and nice cars so that they can look as rich as their boss?
> Privacy allows us to feel comfortable revealing only the information we think won't detriment us in the eyes of others, especially because this can have significant tangible effects on our lives.
I don't want my employers to know my GPA. I don't want banks to know my credit score. I don't want the government to know I went to jail. Yet, these are not things we can hide, even if they "have significant tangible effects on our lives".
If the objective is equality, hiding negative qualities won't cut it. You'll have to prevent people from showing their positive qualities too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Malicious people exist Is it malicious to expose the truth? Who is to blame if others react badly to the truth? The "malicious" person or the ones that react negatively? > things we consider private Why do we consider anything to be private? Where do you draw the line? Do others need my permission to collect any information that relates to me? Why do we assume we have some exclusive right over any information? > We…
1. Truth can be misued for misguidance and I think it's easier to allow for a private space than to achieve a society that is not prone to misguidance. 2. Without going too much into the details I would personally prefer spatial declarations of private space. For example the space that is occupied by your home and the space that is constituted by a sphere that encloses your body. Ideally everyone should have the poss…
2. What if you're loud and I can hear you when you're inside your "private space"? What if my camera captures you in your "bubble"? Can I get into trouble for capturing any information? Will I be able to use my Google Glasses in public (public hopefully being everywhere)?
3. No such space should exist. Your thoughts and actions should always have social implications. Why shouldn't natural rules apply everywhere equally?
4. I don't wish to manually control all this information myself. I don't want to worry about what's private, what's public, avatars, pseudonyms, etc.
Actually, I wish others would track my every thoughts and moves so that I could stop wasting my time manually inputting all this information in systems and such. But this is only possible through complete transparency.
Here is the best explanation I have seen of the issue: http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127... The tl;dr is that arguments against privacy generally focus on not having anything to hide if you aren't doing anything wrong. In reality, it's a lot more complicated. Loss of privacy can cause a great deal of harm even when you haven't done anything wrong.
I've read this before. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of things to hide. But the only reason I have to hide them is becaues society expects me to do so. In a more transparent society, people would be much more tolerant.
A truly tolerant society doesn't care what people are doing in private. The only reason to go to the trouble of collecting and analyzing private data is if you intend to do something with that data. The reason people care about privacy is that your agenda is not the same as mine.
If you think privacy is useless, please reply to this comment by posting: - Your name, address, phone number - Your place of employment, income from all sources, net worth and valuation of your major assets (house, car, investments, etc.) - All your social media accounts (please make sure that all information you've ever posted there is publicly accessible) - Your credit card numbers, bank account numbers, social sec…
Classic reply. I wish I could be open about all these things. I really do. Unfortunately, society currently expects us to keep some information private. A lot of things, such as private-key cryptography, actually rely on this very secrecy. Privacy sustains an intolerance that prohibits me from sharing this information publicly. This is the precise reason why I think we should get away from privacy. There's few things…
My desire for privacy in no way affects your actions. You are free to reply to my questions at any time. In fact, many people share all sorts of personal information about themselves on their blogs and here on HN.
"There's few things I want more than being able to be 100% honest with myself and others, and never have to tell another lie..."
There's a difference between telling lies and not making personal information about yourself public. In all my postings on HN, I've never told a lie, but you wouldn't know much personal information about me other than my approximate age and city of residence.
You may think that privacy is the "bottleneck of social progress". However, people like me, who prefer to live our lives free from public scrutiny and judgement (not to mention government surveillance), don't wish for the same things you do. The prospect of living in a world where people who don't have Facebook and LinkedIn accounts are considered suspicious and unemployable is not appealing to me.