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If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#251

Post by Qwertious »

mgkimsal wrote: post #153
perfTerm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even if I have nothing to hide why can't I fear for potential whistle blowers, journalists, or activists? It's a shame that we love to boil incredibly complex issues down into simple platitudes. You find it on facebook, on the news, on twitter (although short and sweet does work well there), and every where else you look and people you talk to. It's a shallow way to talk about things.

I agree, except I don't think it's "incredibly complex". The bigger issue is in reducing things to a soundbite, we almost always end up with something that just speaks to the individual. And as you pointed out, I may have nothing to 'hide' myself, but want to ensure the privacy of others as a basic freedom.

As a general rule though, soundbites often do simplify things that are incredibly complex - the economy is broken, so clearly the solution to literally everything is to Reduce Taxes/Tax The Rich More/Your Nonsense Here.

Those generally have a grain of truth, but there is no simple one-line solution here, it's invariably quite complex. The field of economics is an entire field rather than a one-paragraph summary, after all.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#252

Post by Qwertious »

stickfigure wrote: post #239
task_queue wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good percentage of the time a weapon used by a homeowner during a home invasion is used against them. Get out of the house and let the authorities deal with it. Your stuff isn't worth your life or your family's continued safety. Remember that most burglars aren't as shocked or scared as you are during a burglary. It's a routine for them. Their attention is focused on what to do if someone in the house notices. If y…

A good percentage of the time a weapon used by a homeowner during a home invasion is used against them. This quasi-statistic (which I will take at face value), while interesting from a sociological perspective, does not actually inform individual decisionmaking. It's a thinly veiled way of saying to someone "you can't be trusted to handle a gun/knife/whatever properly" - which, even if true for the majority of humans…

That's quite an interesting comment on the tone of the argument you're responding to(http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html), but doesn't actually refute it.

People make mistakes, people are fallible, the /r/talesfromtechsupport subreddit goes to show that quite well. Despite this, you obviously don't want these people to die, and if not having a gun reduces the chance of a gun being turned on them, they may well be better without it.

Having a gun in the scenario inherently raises the stakes to lethal, after all.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#253

Post by Qwertious »

baddox wrote: post #160
Maken wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from starting a gun race with the burglar and fearing losing your life altogether with your possessions, I never follow this reasoning. How is it worse facing without guns a unarmed intruder than facing with a gun a well armed one?

If you're physically weaker than the other person, it's pretty clear how it's worse. Two people with guns is a much more even match than two different-sized people without guns. And that's ignoring the criminals-will-still-have-guns argument.

It improves your odds, but raises the stakes. You should only raise the stakes if you care more about successfully stopping the intruder from taking your stuff, than you do about increasing the risk of death.

At the end of the day we still need to look at the stats (how often do intruders hurt/kill homeowners when unprovoked?), but it still doesn't make too much sense to raise stakes for the sake of survival.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#254

Post by LoSboccacc »

joshuak wrote: post #92
dmvaldman wrote: post #3

"When you say I don't care about the right to privacy because I have nothing to hide, that is no different than saying I don't care about freedom of speech because I have nothing to say or freedom of the press because I have nothing to write." - Edward Snowden

Also the argument is framed backwards. The question isn't, 'why do I need my privacy'. The question is, 'why do you need to take it'.

Even that is naive and falling for their trick: accepting that privacy is about hiding.

Better explained here by Schneier https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/the_eternal...

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#255

Post by thedragonaut »

Sideloader wrote: post #44
dmvaldman wrote: post #3

"When you say I don't care about the right to privacy because I have nothing to hide, that is no different than saying I don't care about freedom of speech because I have nothing to say or freedom of the press because I have nothing to write." - Edward Snowden

“What people used to call liberty and freedom we now call privacy. And we say, in the same breath, that privacy is dead.” — Jacob Appelbaum

"I hope someone submits (one of) the OPM dataset(s) to @wikileaks. Would be a nice addition to ICWatch: https://icwatch.wikileaks.org/ "

-- Jacob Appelbaum

https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/609622195434819584

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#257

Post by deciplex »

rorykoehler wrote: post #66
hammock wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or I don't care about freedom to bear arms because I don't have a gun

What I don't understand about the want to have freedom to bare arms (aside from moral arguments about what high levels of gun ownership does to society, but let's not go there) is that the only time I can imagine needing a gun in life is during a time of civil war or some similar sort of uprising. It would not make any difference to me what the law was in this regard if lawlessness had already broken out and I feared…

So, in other words: "I don't care about freedom to bear arms because I don't have a gun."

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#258

Post by pm »

rorykoehler wrote: post #181
baddox wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's exactly the same type of argument as "I don't care about privacy because I have nothing to hide."

I do care about guns and having weighed up the pros and cons I have decided I would prefer to live in a society where they are not readily available.

Come to Australia. We got rid of most the guns.

Re: If you've nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear

#259

Post by yummyfajitas »

foldr wrote: post #236
yummyfajitas wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you cite discusses intimate partner violence and seems to suggest that abusive households which have a gun present may result in the gun being used against the woman. If you read my comment, I was discussing attacks by strangers. Here is an article, for example, that suggests violent resistance (ideally with a gun) is the best way to avoid property loss and injury when attacked. http://onlinelibrary.wiley…

Of course it is possible to imagine situations in which a gun makes you safer. The point is that in the real world, you are more likely to end up in a situation where it makes you less safe. More specifically, women are far more likely to be killed by their abusive partners than they are to face a life-threatening home invasion.

So don't buy a gun if you have an abusive intimate partner, and do buy one if you are single or have a non-abusive partner. Pretty simple.

Also, upon rereading, your article doesn't even really support your claim that a gun makes women less safe. Note the comparisons made: "More than twice as many women are killed with a gun used by their husbands or intimate acquaintances than are murdered by strangers..." "A very small percentage of these women (7%) had used a gun successfully in self-defense..."

Note the comparisons NOT made: the percentage of women in households without a gun who successfully defended themselves, or P(murder|abusive husband && gun) vs P(murder|abusive husband && !gun).

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