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Comment by feanaro | Hacker News Reader

I suspect OP meant cowardice in not fighting for what is right and even giving up with tepid resignation before the fight has even begun. Perhaps cowardice is not the best word but the meaning felt immediately intelligible to me.

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I think I more or less understand as well, but I have a pet peeve about people using the word "cowardice" for things they think are morally wrong. The classic example was how everyone was calling the 9/11 bombers cowardly, when clearly their actions required a certain amount of bravery. If memory serves, Bill Maher lost his show for pointing out that fact. I think people do this because they don't feel comfortable with a purely moral condemnation, so they reach for something that is also suggests weakness, a more universally despised trait.

The cowardice is in surrendering your moral agency

"So if there was anything I was considering doing where if it became public I would be hurt, I wouldn't do it."

There is a great book Bonhoeffer[1] by Eric Mataxas which deals with this and a lot of other issues

1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35493109-bonhoeffer

The next sentence is:

> This corresponded almost exactly with things I shouldn't have been doing anyway, so it wasn't too hard.

The writer appears to be saying that there is no conflict between what he thinks is right and what the general public thinks is right. This is why I suggested naive or foolish might be better terms. I love Bonhoeffer, though!

You're right that that's what the piece says. It's not what I would write now: there definitely are things that I think are right and most people don't. Instead of doing those things secretly, however, I do them and make a public case for them.

Examples, explaining why I:

* Often let my kids do things alone at ages when other people wouldn't: https://www.jefftk.com/p/whats-the-alternative-to-independen...

* Disregard the warning on baby formula that says not to use the microwave: https://www.jefftk.com/p/stop-discouraging-microwave-formula...

* Work(ed) on ads: https://www.jefftk.com/p/why-i-work-on-ads

Interesting, but those aren't very high stakes controversial opinions. People may strongly disagree with them, but they aren't likely to lead to a declined job offer, workplace difficulties or harassment. There are many stances for which making a public case is futile because people have strong emotional commitments around them. Would you still be public about them?

Yes, I would still be public. I think making a case is almost never futile: I don't think I've ever encountered a topic where there weren't some people (often the quieter ones) who cared about the arguments.

It is hard to read this any other way then - you are in a privileged position of having never been personally challenged by a lack of privacy so are fine with privacy not existing. By that reasoning you are also OK with those who are effected being silenced, because they are, for example, not cisgender, white skinned and male and could face attack for random individuals for expressing their views in public.

The challenging thing about reading books like Bonhoffer is that it compels you to questioning what your response would have been if placed in the same situation.

> you are fine with privacy not existing

I don't think we'll be able to prevent the disappearance of privacy as technology continues to get cheaper and more widespread. I'm not saying "this is good", I'm saying "this is coming, adapt".

We won't be able to prevent it only if we accept it. The erosion of privacy is self-imposed, so if it brings damage and people consider it important, it will stop.

Our world is non-ideal in many ways, and there are many potential sacrifices one could make to help improve our future. Using more private technology is one of them, but so are things like avoiding flying, going vegan, switching careers to directly work on a problem, or donating to support progress in these or other areas. I think it's pretty hard to make a case that trying to hold back the large decrease in privacy is more altruistically valuable than, say, trying to keep humanity from wiping itself out (nukes, bioengineering, AI, etc).

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