Comment by miguelrochefort | Hacker News Reader

Comment by miguelrochefort | Hacker News Reader

miguelrochefort

I'm probably the only person I know who believes that privacy is unsustainable and overrated, and that a social credit system is unavoidable and massively underrated.

I have never understood people's obsession with privacy, Orwell's 1984, etc. It always seemed motivated by selfishness and irrational fear.

For the longest time, I've been wondering what was wrong with me. Why don't other people share my preference for transparency and efficiency? Why is everyone trying to make things more difficult for people around them?

Then I discovered China. It seemed like WeChat and Sesame Credit were what I had been looking for all these years. How come don't we have these things in the west? Why are we so conservative and technophobe?

I quickly realized that WeChat and Sesame Credit were poor (centralized, authoritarian) implementations of great visions. It is now overwhelmingly clear to me that we need a decentralized version of WeChat and Sesame Credit. This would be the greatest innovation since the invention of the Internet.

Yet, I can't seem to find anyone willing or capable to appreciate these ideas. What am I missing?

It fills me with existential dread to know that there are smart people out there who don't see this as an atrocity waiting to happen. I'll go ahead and guess that you've never suffered at the hands of a capricious authority figure.

Maybe think of privacy like closet space? You might not need what you have right now, but you wouldn't want to share it with the world either, would you?

But privacy is a very arbitrary and usually differs from culture to culture.

The desire for privacy is universally shared by people across all countries. Sadly not everyone understands how technology works and how online privacy violations affect them, their loved ones and strangers.

Not to mention when you're stuck living in a shithole then fighting for privacy might not be your biggest concern (especially when doing so is likely to put you in great danger).

I think the biggest problem people have isn't the lack of privacy in the systems today, but the asymmetric use of/access to the information. Our reliance upon centralized hubs for exchanging information gives more power to those who control those centralized hubs, compared to say if all the information collected by all those hubs were to be made immediately available to all for free. Decentralized hubs will spread the power out to more actors besides gov/the rich/hackers.

The experience of nazism, an industrialized killing system made possible by huge databases.

And a compliant populace.

Databases provided by IBM[1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_during_World_War_II#Critic...

> What am I missing?

First hand experience with corruption?

> What am I missing?

I hesitate to make too many assumptions as to what you’re missing, but perhaps you aren’t distinguishing between government actors and private matters?

For example, we generally believe those who wield power over the citizenry should be as transparent as possible—this is the only way we (the citizenry) can make informed decisions about those leaders. If we don’t know what the leaders are actually doing, we are literally incapable of making informed decisions.

We also generally believe the opposite is true for the citizenry, that we should have as much privacy as possible. We believe this because it is far easier for a totalitarian regime to set roots if it knows everything about the citizenry.

The most powerful should be held accountable to an informed citizenry. This is one of the ways we try to maintain balance and prevent abuses by that power.

I don't like governments. I'm torn between geolibertarianism and anarchism. I don't like the authoritarian Chinese government, especially when it comes to censorship and free speech.

I want more transparency for everyone. I want citizens to know more about the government (if one must exist). Some people call it sousveillance, as opposed to surveillance.

Our efforts to hide from the government ultimately hinders our progress as a society. Wouldn't it be better to reduce the government and/or make it more transparent?

> Our efforts to hide from the government ultimately hinders our progress as a society. Wouldn't it be better to reduce the government and/or make it more transparent?

Do you not recognize the false dichotomy in your words? Why not do all three?

As the technology develop, tracking for everything will be inevitable, I rather have transparency for everyone (including the government), seems to be more pragmatic this way. Besides, keeping thing private has its cost too.

> How come don't we have these things in the west? Why are we so conservative and technophobe?

Because of basic concepts like fundamental human rights, privacy, and other things guaranteed by documents like the US constitution, bill of rights, various constitutional amendments, and other documents such as Canada's charter of rights and freedoms. If your comment is not entirely satire, I'm appalled that I even needed to type this reply.

I know at least two other people in my immediate circle who believe in the inevitability of ubiquitous tracking. For my part, I want to make sure it gets built right.

I've also lived in very corrupt societies etc. This can be done right. I'm sure of it. I guess we'll see in the next ten years or so.

I totally understand what your saying so I will explain some objections to this idea.

Information asymmetry is power. Usually the less powerful use this asymmetry to their advantage. Would you play poker with an opponent that could see your hand?

Second and more cultural is that western societies do not trust governments. This has nothing to do with the atrocities of the 20th century but actually the objection to the old monarchys. America was basically created out of this objection to government.

are you familiar with the concept of a panopticon? When you are being watched/tracked to think you are - then your behavior changes - this is generally not wanted as far as a positive sum game is concerned.

I am choosing to read this as great satire. The alternative is terrifying.

Terrifying, indeed. I'm guessing all the "great" dictators of history had similarly grandiose, hubristic visions disconnected from the reality of human nature. I wonder if there's a biological component, e.g. how some sociopaths have dysfunctional parts of the brain. Add P.T. Barnum's axiom, and it's easy to see how murderous, authoritarian empires rise.

> I have never understood people's obsession with privacy

Do you want the government, your employer, family to know what porn you watch and how often?

Human nature and its propensity to misuse great ideas.

See also: communism, nuclear physics, and cryptography.

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