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Comment by mywittyname | Hacker News Reader

I'd prefer to keep my finances private, thanks. No good can come from nosey-ass family members, scammers, sales people, etc knowing this kind of information.

It doesn't fight against tax evasion or anything, because the wealthy of the world will have yet another incentive to mask their income / assets through any of the number of mechanisms currently available.

If you want pay transparency to fight pay inequality, then anonymized pay based on role / job title should suffice.

Any legitimate need for such information can either be obtained through asking, or through the courts. At least then, I have a say in the matter and a right to defend myself in cases where I believe it necessary.

People are entitled to privacy. I wouldn't want random people knowing my salary anymore than I'd want them knowing what medications I take.

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> If you want pay transparency to fight pay inequality, then anonymized pay based on role / job title should suffice.

It does not suffice.

We mostly do have this data in the US and wealth inequality keeps deepening.

The only purpose of the salary taboo is to keep rich people rich.

> The only purpose of the salary taboo is to keep rich people rich.

While it is part of the motivation, calling it the only purpose is just hilariously wrong, completely lacks any nuance/empathy, and a single case of something existing outside of the "only purpose" statement proves it wrong immediately.

My brother ex-communicated my dad because he wouldn't stop hounding him for money. My brother became wealthy at a young age, and made the unfortunate mistake of divulging his finances to my narcissistic father. My father made terrible financial decisions in his life and subsists entirely on social security. He also bragged routinely about cheating on my mom, who got the courage to pull us out of that situation when we were kids. Any extra money I have would go to my mom, not my piece of crap dad.

I can't imagine how terrible it would be if he simply knew how much money I make.

Your dad is a product of the salary taboo. The salary taboo creates a weird societal emphasis that associates a person's worth to their income, hence to certain kinds of narcissism.

I mean, maybe you're right. But also, parent probably knows his Dad a bit better than you, so maybe you shouldn't assume that some kind of generic statement about society for sure applies to other people?

This is the "lacking in nuance" thing that parent was talking about.

The really rich are not so because of the salaries they draw, if any.

Salary transparency can help individuals by revealing their unfair pay relative to their peers. Correcting such injustices are not big money overall, they're not going to create meaningful wealth distribution, it's not going to make the rich noticeably less rich.

The rich people are the ones giving lower salaries, thanks to the salary taboo, while also hiding their own income, also thanks to the salary taboo.

I can imagine a society that doesn't value privacy functioning much better than ours if the lack of privacy is somehow thoroughly universalized. Secrets allow for concentration of power, something we should avoid.

That being said I'm well aware of how load bearing "somehow thoroughly universalized" is in my statement. Perhaps it's only possible in a culture that truly rejects secret keeping as deeply harmful from an individual level up. I don't believe we can get there from here anytime soon, and if we tried it would just be another system for the people who figure out how to keep secrets to exploit that info asymmetry. In a world of cooperating actors though . . . yeah, I know I'm dreaming.

There is no freedom without privacy, full stop.

Surely that depends. If there was a database where you could lookup the eye color of anybody, would freedom be significantly impacted?

I imagine that publishing everybodies income would not have a significant impact on freedom even if some people would prefer to keep that data private.

Depends if you have the right Aryan eye color when the ethnic cleansing squads come round or not.

In that scenario I think the freedom was lost when the ethnic cleansing squads were formed, not when the database became available.

But it enables it read about how Nazis's used IBM punch card systems to help round up Jews

Its also covered in the:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 12)

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 17)

> Secrets allow for concentration of power, something we should avoid.

Why should we avoid it? Oh, I know a few arguments and they're compelling in abstract but are inevitably just arguments towards a reshuffling of who or what has power. Power over another, however you want to define it, is inherent in hierarchical structures, and I am sorry to say but hierarchies - that is, rankings of entities - are one of the most fundamental aspects of all known existence. How many electrons do you have?

I get where you're coming from. We should avoid concentration of power in human societies because this always (at least so far) leads to abuse of that power.

However, reality exists.

I'm not saying: By whatever means necessary we should enforce flatness of power.

Hierarchies are unavoidable and useful.

I'm more making the argument that cultural disgust at concentration of power, and a general erring on the side of flatness whenever we can would go a long way toward a healthier society.

I want personal privacy. I want privacy in my use of services. Privacy in where I go, at least to a reasonable degree. (Something to discuss, just not this thread.)

All law, court cases, contracts, and legally binding agreements being public? I could be convinced that's a good idea. Bright sunlight from all angles would revel inequity and could allow better civic planning and civil action (voting).

I think the line should be drawn a little in favor of being private, and in favor of hiding non-recurring purchases for personal use. It would be more harmful than good to reveal where and when someone gets food, takes a vacation, etc.

I don't live in Norway but OP didn't seem to suffer from second order consequences of divulging income. Maybe culture can be a factor here too.

Norway has a very flat distribution of income. This means that most people don't need to worry about others knowing their income, it is more or less the same for everyone.

I imagine that this policy also helps with keeping the flat distribution, since people will know when someone is making more money and will request similar salary increases.

You say that, but in 2014 they introduced protections that made it impossible to search the database anonymously. People are now informed who has accessed their information, when, and are provided information about the searcher in question, such as birth year and postal codes. Also, a person is only allowed to see a limited number of people's returns.

skatteentaten.no also lists a bunch of other privacy restrictions that they have in place.

This was, in part, to discourage criminals using the database to target wealthy people, and to curtail some of the harassment that resulted from this information being brought to light. This change apparently was a enough to dissuade the majority of usage, as most people now apparently just search for themselves.

ah.. social dynamics are so strange.

Thanks for the data though.

Imagine not trusting your family with knowing how much you earn.

My family is, perhaps "interesting", so it's not hard to imagine at all. Just cause they're blood doesn't mean they're good.

Not everyone is blessed with a loving and supportive family, unfortunately. Surely you know this?

There are tons of dysfunctional families in the world. The US just had one in the Executive branch. Don't you think Mary Trump probably has good reason to not want Donald knowing her income?

Must be nice to assume it's difficult for people to imagine. Are you a minor? There are many people without trusting families...

it's probably more current than you would think...

I agree with the others here. unfortunately for a lot of people it is not something they have to imagine. I don't support the down votes though. I think your comment brings an important issue front and center.

Imagine being this ignorant about people.

Imagine assuming everyone has good relations with his family... I have good relations with mine and I'd still not trust anyone outside my parents/sibling with that info.

Different cultures. My family don't know how much I earn, and vice versa. Why do they require this information? It can be quite rude in some places to ask someone how much they earn.

It's so easy to imagine this. Have you spent any time browsing https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/ ? - and that's just the first example that jumps to mind.

https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/ is even more relevant than that.

Uncle celticninja: "But celticninja you make so much money and I'm on a fixed income, can't you just loan me some, remember when I got you that hot wheel when you were six?"

I told my dad what I made, he messed up and told my mom, my mom told her brother and now this guy I haven't seen in a couple of decades is begging me for money.

He showed up at my house once to beg and then got mad because he had spent the last of his money on gas to drive to my house to ask for money.

So tell him no

This is what I don’t get - lots of people resist just saying no. If you’re well off financially and someone refuses to hear your answer then you’re in a proper position to exile family members. The only thing stopping you from exiling them is yourself.

Cut toxic people out of your life!

Tell the guy that your dad and mom are rich, and eventually become soft touches if someone is really persistent about asking them for money. :|

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