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Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

This is the best thing I've read of Bruce's in a while.

The huge amount of social change -- instituted by the companies in question and others -- would have been science fiction or fantasy just 20 years ago. We've never dumped the personal details of billions to each other like we are now. People can wave their hands around and say it's good, or that it's bad, but we simply don't know. We do know that it's big. One of the biggest changes mankind has had in social structure and it's just happening simply because most folks haven't thought through exactly what they're doing when they participate in various forms on the internet. It's free, so they think it must be harmless.

Ironically, we could end up taking an old slogan and changing it around it for new usage: "Freedom isn't free"

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People can wave their hands around and say it's good, or that it's bad, but we simply don't know.

Hmm,

It's funny but if someone said to me, "hey we're going to do this experiment on people, it might hurt them and it might harm them, would you like us to it on you or would you rather watch while we do it on Bob here", you know, I'd say "do it on Bob if you must and I'll watch and see if seems like a good idea..."

It's not presented as an experiment, even though it could be described as such. It wasn't even constructed as an experiment. It was built to allow people to do something that they want to do, but the way that it happens and the scale at which it happens are things that no one really considers. Humans have a hard time grasping the scale of things once they reach a large enough size. Similar to things like the over-hunting of the American Bison or the over-fishing of various waters around the world. "There's tons of Bison on the open plains. It's impossible for humans to put a dent in their numbers! Why should I feel bad about killing so many."

In that sense, everything we do, especially when we produce something new, is an experiment since we rarely can predict many of the consequences. Most of the people responsible for the creation of the automobile, and most who bought the early ones, would probably have preferred to keep shoveling horse manure if they could have foreseen many of the social and cultural changes the auto has brought about.

You a right. Experimentation is good.

However, I would posit that, for most people to be willing to experiment and to be ready to enjoy the process, there has to be a pretty strong limit to the downside.

Being put into a position where "hey, anything can happen to you" is probably only appealing to the very small, very entrepreneurial segment of the population.

Moreover, sharing all of your intimate details with the world is much more like the situation where you have a lot to lose and mostly likely only a small amount to gain - except if you're a celebrity.

I've actually taken time to think through my personal participation of the internet. I'm always cognizant of what information I'm exposing about myself with every post (including this one). I think one has to be if one wants to protect their own privacy.

These companies sure aren't going to protect your privacy for you. I think the answer is to be aware of what sort of information trail one leaves on a particular service, then to be aware of what information is given to that service.

I don't know if this will even help, only time will tell. But I do know that just sharing everything like the services prompt you to do probably won't end up being a good thing.

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