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Comment by errantspark | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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)

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