There was a thread on reddit asking the other day what about the modern world bothers you the most
I actually considered this question and after thinking about it, despite everything going on, I think it boils down to lack of privacy as my biggest gripe in the modern world
It’s such a tough concept to explain to the if you don’t have anything to hide crowd, but if someone wants to disappear, I don’t care if for good or bad reasons, they should be able to
If you don’t want the government on you, if you don’t want people you know to find you, if you just want to reinvent yourself, it doesn’t matter why - you should be able to do this. It just “feels” like an innate right. Normally I don’t like to argue using “vibes” as justification, but this to me is just part of my value system/morals which is inherently arbitrary to begin with
Encroaching on this privacy encroaches on a bunch of other rights, like free speech as you’ve mentioned
The fact that this is the case makes it even clearer to me that privacy is a basic fundamental primitive
Would love to hear alternative perspectives and other justifications for or against privacy
Either so few people appreciate the freedom that privacy confers or the perceived conveniences for trading it away are too compelling because of just how little society has done to protect privacy.
I only imagine it changing after a significant cultural change in which the economic value is not held as higher than the value of privacy, but would be delighted to be wrong in this regard.
The EU is both pro-privacy and anti-privacy. In many ways, they're ahead of the US - you can opt out of more telemetry, more advertising, more tracking. Good. But then the encryption stuff - bad.
Informed consent laws - good. Laws about third-party tracking - good. So it's some good, some bad.
But, on the topic of encryption, it's not like the US is pure here either.
It is very much not clear to me that you should have privacy from governments or cops. Aren't the whole point of the government and cops that they are the institutions we have created to entrust with this access?
Please feel free to set up a spyware on your phone that records every image you send, every text and email you write and saves all this data somewhere that you will never have access to and for an indefinite amount of time.
That is exactly what the EU is trying to do with the Chat Control law. Targeted law enforcement access to some data is not what is being discussed here.
We are talking about 24/7/365 mass surveillance without warrants and without the suspicion of any crime committed.
Given that Europe specifically has a very sordid history with the use of data collected by government to genocide literally millions of people, no, I don't think it can be entrusted with such access.
Privacy is required for the mental health of many people, perhaps everyone except the extroverted and naive. Anxiety and fear over people watched, caught, punished, especially innocently. Anxiety and fear over their lack of privacy being abused and harming them, such as currently popularized with identity theft and other crimes, or simple ridicule or bullying. And the resultant chilling effects, where people who wish to speak feel they cannot because they might suffer, especially in cases where this is an actual risk rather than normal existential dread. Without privacy, you can't be inclusive.
I don't feel as strongly about privacy because "community" is what holds civilisation together.
Its nice to have a little space, and to have your own thoughts and opinions, but not at the expense of civilisation.
People should not be able to use privacy to evade responsibility or debts.
We always need to balance freedoms with responsibility.
Final thought is that this is precisely why government and politics is not a joke and needs to be taken seriously. We need small transparent governments we can trust and that are a held accountable.
If you don't trust your government, you've got bigger problems than your privacy.
> We always need to balance freedoms with responsibility.
Sure, but is this a measure that appropriately balances it?
I think the traditional view is that the balance should be: your rights end where they start stepping on another person's rights.
We aren't really talking about someone else being harmed, we are talking about (at worst) someone harming themselves. There is no other person being harmed.
On the other hand, porn habits are a great way to blackmail people. When the identity data gets leaked, it will very easily ruin lives.
From a balance perspective, i don't really think it follows that the benefits are worth the potential harms. I think civilization is best preserved by not doing this.
> I don't feel as strongly about privacy because "community" is what holds civilisation together.
Dude I'm sure most people are okay with their neighbors knowing their names and addresses. We're talking about the governments and megacorps here. Theses are not "communities" in any traditional sense.
> small transparent governments
No developed country has that. Not EU and definitely not the US.
I actually considered this question and after thinking about it, despite everything going on, I think it boils down to lack of privacy as my biggest gripe in the modern world
It’s such a tough concept to explain to the if you don’t have anything to hide crowd, but if someone wants to disappear, I don’t care if for good or bad reasons, they should be able to
If you don’t want the government on you, if you don’t want people you know to find you, if you just want to reinvent yourself, it doesn’t matter why - you should be able to do this. It just “feels” like an innate right. Normally I don’t like to argue using “vibes” as justification, but this to me is just part of my value system/morals which is inherently arbitrary to begin with
Encroaching on this privacy encroaches on a bunch of other rights, like free speech as you’ve mentioned
The fact that this is the case makes it even clearer to me that privacy is a basic fundamental primitive
Would love to hear alternative perspectives and other justifications for or against privacy