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Comment by Tloewald | Hacker News Reader

Once privacy disappears we can actually base our morality on data rather than wishful thinking. It's the transition period (i.e. now) where we have pretty arbitrary morals largely based on ancient religious texts, etc. and we're finally getting actual data on what people actually do that is the nasty part.

E.g. we know that rich people have always obtained abortions, used illegal drugs, and had promiscuous sex, but public morality and social mores were constructed entirely on the fiction that this was the exception and not the rule.

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I'm an atheist and have an expansive view of morality, but I still value my privacy, not least because it provides me with a small asymmetrical information advantage against institutions with which I would otherwise be unable to compete. I don't think it's the case that if we were all to wake up naked (figuratively speaking) that hypocrisy would disappear and there would be a major adjustment in our social technology.

Take this AM hack; one of te first public casualties was a somewhat famous religious conservative, who had previously been in the news for committing multiple acts of incest/child molestation as a youth (the statute of limitations on which has long since expired). Despite abundant evidence of moral malfeasance and a blunt self-assessment as 'the biggest hypocrite ever', the guys followers are still lining up to defend his fundamental righteousness and condemn his detractors as being on an inferior moral plane. This is irrational, but people place a high value on their illusions and will expend real resources to perpetuate them.

Some people are really dumb. But we are also in a transition period. People in general don't change hard earned prejudices; they die and are replaced by people with new prejudices.

These aren't arbitrary just because they are enshrined in religion and custom. Before the pill, women couldn't sleep around without fear of getting pregnant. Before condoms, people couldn't sleep around without fear of STDs. Before DNA testing husbands couldn't be sure they were the father of their own children if their wife had an affair. Before modern medicine, abortion carried a significant risk of complications - potentially death.

We are adjusting our social values in response to advances in technology.

OTOH, lying, cheating, and betraying those closest to you will never be acceptable. I think we will simply move towards a state where open marriages are much more common.

Back when sex always entailed a chance of pregnancy, food was scarce, disease was a mystery, we lived in small tribes, etc. etc. many of these rules may well have made sense. Survival heuristics got encoded as religion, which was then horribly misinterpreted, and adhered to long past its point of utility. Now these rules aren't random, but they are pretty arbitrary.

Consider that our hangups about sex are tied to a sense of right and wrong that comes down to food scarcity (and other base needs, such as safety from predators) and reproductive rights. So we've got a bunch of people who treat sex as having moral significance owing to a survival/economic importance that no longer exists.

When sex first became disconnected from reproduction we had a "sexual revolution" where people tried to act as if the underlying rules and norms had changed overnight and there were horrible repercussions, but that's not because there's something intrinsically correct about our current (or recent past) sexual mores. Rape within marriage used to be just fine (indeed, it only became illegal throughout the US in 1993).

> Before the pill, women couldn't sleep around without fear of getting pregnant. Before condoms, people couldn't sleep around without fear of STDs.

I'm going to push back on that assertion. There are still STDs in developed countries with plenty of access to condoms. Assuming that STD patients are not intentionally contracting diseases, it appears, at least on a social level, that condoms are not effective ways to prevent STDs in populations, at least not yet. Likewise for other forms of birth control and unplanned pregnancy rates.

I think our morals are outpacing our science and habits. And the disadvantaged disproportionately pay the consequences. Or the people who pay the consequences end up disadvantaged. Or both.

> We are adjusting our social values in response to advances in technology.

Are we? I'm not so sure. We take a very non-judgmental view of all sorts of risky behaviors. Scientifically speaking, anal sex has many more risk factors associated with it than other forms of sex. I haven't seen any studies about health risks associated with infidelity, but it's plausible (if not almost certain) that a person having unprotected sex with a secretly promiscuous spouse is exposed to STDs unwittingly.

I think you can argue for more personal freedom, but I'm going to disagree when you assert that we, as a society, have evolved past the consequences traditional morals were set up to protect against.

Well said. Though of course another aspect of those social institutions was hierarchical stability: if a peasant married a nobility, had a child, and then gained claim to this family's assets then all would go to pots soon. On the contrary a marriage between two noble families would create political bonds to benefit them both. In fact the notion of "romantic love" didn't really exist until the renaissance (though unfortunately now we know pretty well this notion is also quite BS and against human nature anyways). Now with productivity largely increased and ordinary people having much more economic power such an institution has no reason to stand. It's just that social changes mostly occur slower than technical/economic basis for them.

And indeed, a relationship has to be based on mutual agreement and trust. If both sides agree this relationship to be open, then there's no problem at all. It's only problematic if they reached an agreement when starting the relationship, but later couldn't adhere to it. If no deal, then no relationship. If there's a deal, then you'll have to follow through.

Or legalize against the advances in question.

In France it is illegal to DNA test you 'own' children, and the doctors will lie to you as a policy, to avoid 'broken homes'.

Many of our arbitrary morals, even religiously influenced ones, are based on tribal culture and human biology. For example, chastising monogamous cheaters is one way to reduce jealousy and oxytocin-induced stress in a community. Following your example, anti-abortionists may see themselves as championing undefended members of society.

Even in lieu of a privacy-free utopia where we fully analyze our motivations, I think we'll still have biological and tribal inclinations influencing our societal morals. (Unless this hypothetical utopia is so far in the future we've biologically evolved.)

It's not "wishful thinking". It's a tool/lie by the ruling class to control the mass. "Marriage" has always been a tool to ensure hierarchical stability: nobles married nobles because that helped to maintain their family wealth, which is not necessarily how the society works today, and so-called "romantic love" was a new notion invented only after renaissance(it's also not the truth on how humans think/behave anyways). Of course technical advances also play a big part in it. In ancient times there were practical troubles for sleeping around because of STD and impregnation. Female liberation and sexual freedom largely came with advances in contraception devices. Nowadays with everybody gaining more independence and power such archaical social institutions are bound to be obsolete. It's just that social changes mostly come slower than technical/economical basis for them.

Humans have arbitrary morals in much the same way that wolves have arbitrary instincts to pack-hunt; many preceding generations have survived thanks to that particular characteristic, so the modern individuals abide by the behavior, not even fully aware that it happens to increase their chances of survival. The mechanism works the same both for adopted social behavior and for evolved instinct.

But I'd like to make the argument that the central moral imperatives put forth by the bible (as well as by many other religions) would exist as moral imperatives even without religion itself; natural selection would popularize them no matter what.

We will have something far more sinister than just a data based morality.

The planet is overpopulated and it can't sustain that many people. In one hundred years it will be even worse, and measures more drastic than the Chinese one child per family policy will be taken.

The total loss of privacy will let the world rulers choose who gets to live and who doesn't, with ruthless efficiency and, having records of everything questionable everyone has done, no opposition whatsoever.

I guess it will have even plenty of public support.

After the purge, the statistics based morality will rule uncontested.

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