Comment by spookthesunset | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spookthesunset | Hacker News Reader

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> Isn't it exhausting to live like that?

I always wonder why these kind of folks even bother to visit sites like this at all? Isn't this a tech focused site? Why are you here if you hate advancements in technology so much?

It reminds me of all the bitter old curmudgeons on Slashdot back in the day. Every post about advancements in HDD storage or more memory had at least a few highly voted comments droning on about the dangers of bloat and why all anybody really needs is green screens. Articles on higher resolution monitors, or fancier TV's would always have a couple predictable upvoted comments wondering "why do we need all this extra resolution?"

These kinds of comments really don't add anything to a discussion. They just bring a lot of negative energy. For some reason people always seem to upvote them--probably because they sound edgy or controversial. I just roll my eyes at the old grumps and move on with my life.

The big danger is the site gets taken over by these kinds of grumpy people. Then the site starts a slow decline into irrelevance as the world passes it and all the people still using it by....

I like tech. I like programming. Lots of the stuff I see here is quite cool. Liking tech does not mean disregarding privacy. In fact being enthusiastic about tech is almost required to seriously improve your privacy.

A lot of the stuff here is cool open source projects and even the stuff like this thread is still worth talking about even if I wouldn't use the product myself. No point reading only posts and comments I agree with.

Also even though I would never use this product for privacy reasons, I personally benefit from other people using it when the air I breathe doesn't kill me and I don't fear for my life while crossing a road.

It's a discussion of tradeoffs, and the OP was happy to give me insight into his daily thinking on the topic.

I appreciate him entertaining my questions and giving a sincere response.

> old grumps

I'm 22 and privacy-conscious. I also love tech, but I really enjoy my personal privacy and knowing that I'm not being surveiled all the time. I am also a FSF supporter and try to run libre code wherever possible.

Convince me: why should I give up my privacy to use products that will inevitably treat my data irresponsibly?

Define irresponsibly. Your plaintext passwords, ID scans and physical address getting leaked is one thing. Using your basic demographic data for advertising is something else.

An obvious solution is just to use bogus data: name, email, dob, address, burner phone.

Only thing you can't fake is your credit card but I'm sure a lot of companies do actually accept payments where the name of the card differs from the name on the account.

Disposable gift cards can be loaded with up to $500, and cost about $5.

If you buy your cards in cash, they're about as private as the security cameras are in whichever convenience store you pay for them in.

Based on what we know about Target's shopper surveillance and behavioral identification efforts being capable of targeting pregnant women with pregnancy products, who didn't even know they were pregnant yet, themselves, even seemingly benign store locations can be pretty lacking in actual privacy.

Between electronic survellance of mobile device identifiers, blue tooth signatures, free wi-fi usage, versus brute force video analysis yeilding facial recognition results for targeted ads on flatscreen monitors as you pass by bus stops, the status of tracking in public spaces is weird, although you really can ditch credit card tracking.

The only problem is, the truly huge companies have assuredly been routing around that idea for years, by diversifying their information channels.

Plenty of services reject prepaid cards though which is infuriating.

It's called cash. There's a reason not everyone wants to get rid of it.

Advancements in user tracking are not the same thing as general technology advancements. Apps that suck up location data deserve all of the flak they get.

> Why are you here if you hate advancements in technology so much?

Hating the abuse of something isn't hating that thing, and

> I just roll my eyes at the old grumps and move on with my life.

going to such lengths to smear someone indirectly and calling isn't moving on with your life. Adapting to "the world" (which is people doing things, and you're one of them) isn't either.

> when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

-- Carl Sagan

Without the laughter of fools, there is no tao.

HN has already been overrun by primitivists.

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