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Privacy is the most important concept of our time

inre.me

191–200 of 226 posts

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#191

I had some chickens on my lawn the other day. Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me, my family, my neighbors, and the birds with their phone (I assume that's what he was doing, that's what it looked like) for a minute or two, then he drove off. He didn't say a word. He didn't respond when I waved. By my standards of social behavior that dude is a fucking creep and (years ago) I would have tried to go…

I was on the opposite side of this a few years ago. I spent a lot of my childhood in Germany and had the opportunity to go back and see my childhood home and walk along the street. The street was a lot nicer than I remembered so I took some pictures to show my family. At one of the houses I started taking a picture with my callphone and within ~ 10 seconds the front door opened and a woman appeared and started asking me what I was doing and a few seconds later a man appeared next to her and I got the impression that if I didn't leave right away a call to the police would be made.

I'm a millennial and indeed, it seems perfectly normal to take pictures of things you want to remember later. Photographing a person without asking them is more questionable and I can imagine creepy ways to do it, but photographing a house seems 100% unobjectionable. I don't feel that I have any right to privacy when I'm in a public space, someone else taking a photo of me doesn't harm me in any way.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other side of the coin: maybe he didn't see you wave because he's on a video call and looking at the caller's face. Maybe he didn't want to step onto your property or disturb your day because that is often seen as aggressive behavior. Maybe he didn't actually stop for the reason you think he did and just happened to notice the chickens and pointed to take a photo. Calling the cops is a ridiculous reaction to j…

>> Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me... > ... maybe he didn't see you wave because he's on a video call and looking at the caller's face ... So maybe the creeper was on a video call looking at the caller's face, while driving? Nope. There's no excuse for that creepy behavior.

How is taking photos/video of someones chickens creepy.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#193

If you think privacy is the major concern of most people then no offence, but you've had a pretty privileged life. I doubt it's even the major concern of most people in Western countries due to unemployment, poverty, debt etc. let alone developing nations which have the real risk of actual famine and so on.

Privacy is a necessary property of Democracy.

Exploiting private information has also made some companies very rich. There is an element of fairness of distribution here... If you take from me what I have not willingly given and you make huge profits, you should share your wealth and/or invest in my community.

I agree that people who live in a democracy are privileged. Whether they will be wise enough to contribute depends on their education.

But education is a hard problem. Instead of citizens, we often find foolish purchase-zombies. "Why vote? It's all so corrupt, what can we do? Let's go to the sale instead!"

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#194
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered how people who advocate for more open borders justify their position. Could you expand? Naively I would think regulating borders is an essential function in maintaining rule of law - undocumented workers are fodder for exploitation. But I'm honestly open to being wrong.

The US had completely open borders for its first hundred years or so. It wasn't until 1875 with the Page Act, which restricted Chinese women, that we stopped having wide open borders. That was followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which covered Chinese men. For white people the borders remained wide open. In the late 19th century some restrictions where added on white people, too, but the borders were still e…

Thank you for the response! Could I have some references for these claims? Not that I doubt you but this historical context seems very important to the debate.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#195

I had some chickens on my lawn the other day. Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me, my family, my neighbors, and the birds with their phone (I assume that's what he was doing, that's what it looked like) for a minute or two, then he drove off. He didn't say a word. He didn't respond when I waved. By my standards of social behavior that dude is a fucking creep and (years ago) I would have tried to go…

I was on the opposite side of this a few years ago. I spent a lot of my childhood in Germany and had the opportunity to go back and see my childhood home and walk along the street. The street was a lot nicer than I remembered so I took some pictures to show my family. At one of the houses I started taking a picture with my callphone and within ~ 10 seconds the front door opened and a woman appeared and started asking…

> someone else taking a photo of me doesn't harm me in any way

With today's facial recognition technologies, if that photo has GPS coordinates and timestamp attached (most likely it has) it means now somewhere (most likely in several places - cloud, social networks, ad networks, etc.) it is registered that you were at that place at that moment. Not everyone is happy that their movements and whereabouts are being registered.

Well, you can argue that we all carry a smartphone so anyhow our mobile operators (and so, the government (yours and maybe others too)) register our movements history, but at least you can choose not to carry a smartphone, but how can one choose not to be photographed/videotaped?

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me... > ... maybe he didn't see you wave because he's on a video call and looking at the caller's face ... So maybe the creeper was on a video call looking at the caller's face, while driving? Nope. There's no excuse for that creepy behavior.

How is taking photos/video of someones chickens creepy.

Hi!

If you were a sociologist, they'd called this a "generational gap in behavior norms." Greybeards would mutter something about "getting off my lawn" and "kids these days."

Old people are used to people complying with laws that require release forms being signed before publishing someone's likeness.

That went out the window, oh, 25 years agoish.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#197
post #72
post #8

The author goes too far when they suggest there should be laws (and one imagines punishments for those who break them) that prevent something being shared in one space from being shared elsewhere. For example, if I share something with my family, there should be a law that prevents a family member from making what I said public. Not only would this be a nightmare to police but it would give rise to some anti-social o…

>If I was flat out telling my family I didn't like race X and wished that religion Y could be outlawed, and then shared in the public realm that racists are terrible and that freedom of religion for all is paramount...shouldn't someone be able to call me out on it? I think this goes to the heart of the problem with the article in the OP. Everyone knowing everyone's business leads to a lot of good things. Like if you…

Anne Frank got two extra years of life because of her family were able to hide.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#198

I had some chickens on my lawn the other day. Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me, my family, my neighbors, and the birds with their phone (I assume that's what he was doing, that's what it looked like) for a minute or two, then he drove off. He didn't say a word. He didn't respond when I waved. By my standards of social behavior that dude is a fucking creep and (years ago) I would have tried to go…

Really insightful comment and I could not agree anymore. Reading your story really puts it into perspective what we've grown to accept as normal. It's unfortunate that the solution seems to be to just leave—(I don't think stopping and trying to make a friend is realistic the vast majority of the time, or even safe sometimes)—and I'm realizing I'm at that same conclusion.

Cheers!

> It's unfortunate that the solution seems to be to just leave—(I don't think stopping and trying to make a friend is realistic the vast majority of the time, or even safe sometimes)—and I'm realizing I'm at that same conclusion.

It works out in my case: I'm a huge Venture Bro.'s fan and my dream is to create a 1:1 scale model of the Venture Compound complete with H.E.L.P.eR. and G.U.A.R.D.O.. I'm even going to make the tunnels underneath and invite people to live there (but only if they stay in character as VH1-imitating troglodytes.) You better believe the laser turrets will be very realistic.

As for everybody else, yeah, I think the average person is already screwed, and doesn't care because it's comfortable enough. Maybe the Amish will see an uptick in converts but I doubt it.

- - - -

I want to point out, because some of the other sib comments miss it, my gripe isn't so much with one clueless tourist snapping photos, it's that his camera is connected to the world-wide internet and all that entails. For all I know the video has been seen by millions of people by now, eh? Keeping chickens in the city isn't illegal but I don't want to attract attention. (They're not supposed to be on the front lawn, they got out of their run.)

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#199

I had some chickens on my lawn the other day. Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me, my family, my neighbors, and the birds with their phone (I assume that's what he was doing, that's what it looked like) for a minute or two, then he drove off. He didn't say a word. He didn't respond when I waved. By my standards of social behavior that dude is a fucking creep and (years ago) I would have tried to go…

On the other side of the coin: maybe he didn't see you wave because he's on a video call and looking at the caller's face. Maybe he didn't want to step onto your property or disturb your day because that is often seen as aggressive behavior. Maybe he didn't actually stop for the reason you think he did and just happened to notice the chickens and pointed to take a photo. Calling the cops is a ridiculous reaction to j…

With respect I don't appreciate being second-guessed like that. To me it feels like you're implying I'm some kind of idiot that can't see what's in front of his face. Just letting you know.

> Calling the cops is a ridiculous reaction to just about anything these days other than someone has been shot.

You don't understand, I'd be calling the cops because this guy is about to get shot. Some folks in my "hood" have strong and definite opinions about personal boundaries.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#200

I had some chickens on my lawn the other day. Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me, my family, my neighbors, and the birds with their phone (I assume that's what he was doing, that's what it looked like) for a minute or two, then he drove off. He didn't say a word. He didn't respond when I waved. By my standards of social behavior that dude is a fucking creep and (years ago) I would have tried to go…

Or you can approach them in a friendly manner and talk about your Chickens, why are they so fascinated and make a new friend. My advice is to try to understand that your judgement is probably not aligned to malice of the intruder, instead verify with friendliness and if they’re still “creepy”, by all means proceed with your action plan. Love each other and our neighbors. Dude probably just wanted to send it to his gi…

You're missing the point. I'm not Oscar the Grouch.
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