11–20 of 126 posts
Well I dare say, before civilization, when people lived in small tribes, there was no privacy in your tribe. But now, comparing to back then, all other "tribes" can see what you are doing.
Anything to back that claim?
A decent but a little bit too alarmist essay in my opinion. A few reservations also, starting with: "Our actions, our words, even our thoughts , are being monitored, recorded, and analyzed. The sanctity of our homes, once our refuge from the world, is under threat." "It’s not just mere data; rather, it’s a master key to the sealed vaults of our thoughts and experiences." The mind-reading stuff is still a fantasy and…
> The mind-reading stuff is still a fantasy and will be so also in the future. Fantasy today, sure — judging by advertising categories I was getting placed in at least a few years back, the AI don't generally have the ability to infer much from revealed preferences, despite the odd headline every so often. But in the future? Even ignoring the possibility that the aforementioned advertising-AI get better, there's Neur…
I am skeptical. AI, Neuralink, or whatever might infer better on many things, sure, but these certainly will not be able to infer what non-dogmatic people think about, say, philosophy or politics already because humans have always a capability to change their minds, while AI is terribly bad at reorienting itself.
These days there can be no such expectation, and we need to separate out discussion of day-to-day privacy from "if bad actors intercept my communication bad things happen".
We should aggressively maintain the security of privilaged communication, and not stress so much about day to day privacy in our lives; stop gossiping and judging others for actions that do not harm others, whilst allowing them necessary privacy for transactions that should remain privilaged.
As an individual, I want privacy of course. But is privacy really important to mankind? If we look at mankind as an organism, the organism can function better if each part knows what the other part is doing. If the left hand knows what the right hand does. Isn't it the same with mankind? Maybe a society is more efficient without privacy. And more efficiency of the society would benefit its members.
Taken to the extreme, wouldn't that also mean no privacy for your thoughts, brain, mind, but everything should be transparent? Welcome to the Borg, hell of an efficient society.. but not what makes life worthy... so imo no, privacy, free thought, freedom, and likely more just go together, as philosophers long established.
It is one of most foundational human rights!
IMO, it's not only Big Tech that poses a threat on privacy and freedom. Big Governments are other threat that, IMO, it's much harder to fight against it.
As an individual, I want privacy of course. But is privacy really important to mankind? If we look at mankind as an organism, the organism can function better if each part knows what the other part is doing. If the left hand knows what the right hand does. Isn't it the same with mankind? Maybe a society is more efficient without privacy. And more efficiency of the society would benefit its members.
Well I dare say, before civilization, when people lived in small tribes, there was no privacy in your tribe. But now, comparing to back then, all other "tribes" can see what you are doing.
> when people lived in small tribes, there was no privacy in your tribe Anything to back that claim?
I disagree that it's a fundamental right. Over most of history privacy has been rare for most people, with the provisio that if you really wanted a private conversation you could have one in the middle of an open field in daylight with a reasonable expectation that your conversation would not be compromised. These days there can be no such expectation, and we need to separate out discussion of day-to-day privacy from…
Well I dare say, before civilization, when people lived in small tribes, there was no privacy in your tribe. But now, comparing to back then, all other "tribes" can see what you are doing.
> when people lived in small tribes, there was no privacy in your tribe Anything to back that claim?
But the Internet and communications moving to online text, etc, greatly increases the provability of the gossip, if you will. Which is a major change that we as a society haven't really adapted to. We treat "private" or "direct" chats as like talking in a cornfield; but before you just had a he said/she said situation, now someone can "drop receipts" or you can have whatever platform you're on hacked and everything spilled.
As an individual, I want privacy of course. But is privacy really important to mankind? If we look at mankind as an organism, the organism can function better if each part knows what the other part is doing. If the left hand knows what the right hand does. Isn't it the same with mankind? Maybe a society is more efficient without privacy. And more efficiency of the society would benefit its members.