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Comment by C60H92O6 | Hacker News Reader

Privacy must belong to no one, or everyone, but no where in between; i.e. privacy must not be owned by a certain class or group.

If I can read anyone's messages, I'm absolutely fine with everyone else reading mine.

If governments want access to our data, they should open up their data for us to see as well.

Honestly I'd love to live in a world where everything is out in the open, no secrets, no agendas, nothing to hide, no passwords. Everyone knows everyone's intentions, perhaps even thoughts one day via Neurolink. I think after the initial chaos in the first couple of decades, humanity will leap forward beyond imagination.

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This is a beautiful thought, but also a very ugly one at the same time. When only "approved thoughts" can be given voice, even if those thoughts are weighed by a super-majority, is the organism of humanity truly healthy? Monocultures are dangerous to themselves. The only way to have heterogeneity is by allowing for the existence of secrets.

I don't know if you'd need to only have approved thoughts. I think the world would need to accept that people have different values and people don't completely align with their own values. Someone would do, say, or think something wrong and the response would be "meh" (depending on the consequences of course).

That is a cool concept, but I do not think it has ever been realized in practice; which may indicate it is not even realizable.

A community might come close during good times, but once the fortunes turn there are always hunts for scapegoatsband witches. My 2c.

Yeah I don't know. It would be interesting to see this studied.

I think it would quickly go to a "he who is without sin cast the first stone" situation. Any accusation against pretty much anyone could be countered.

There is still an imbalance of power here. The average person doesn't have the means to parse through the mountains of data produced by the entire world, but states and corporations do.

And even if they did, the average person have even less power to do anything about it.

1st half of thought was amazing, but I’m personally still an individualist and no, we should not all live out in the open unless we all unanimously choose to. That of course is impossible.

> live in a world where everything is out in the open

the only outcome would be mass panic.

en plein air decision making has already been tried several times throughout history, it never worked as intended.

social networks are an experiment in that sense and have been weaponized against the people using them in a very short time.

secondly: that would not stop propaganda, which is the real problem, we would only know what people say they think, not what they really think.

also I am not really fine with everyone reading my messages, some things need to stay private to live peacefully and/or not harm other people's feelings.

I don't think your bank account would stay with positive balance for long?

You know what, I want to keep the small part of my brain where I can toy with ideas just for me.

Awesome in theory, thought-police result in practice. In theory ;)

What would you write stories of in such a world? I think the human brain needs some amount of drama. Otherwise, it would get very very bored.

Please. Drama is already incredibly easy to invent even when all is objectively well.

Greek tragedy shows the way: systematic problems can make even a group of people making all the "right" decisions (individually) result in disaster.

For examples, I highly recommend the podcast "Cautionary Tales." Start from Episode 1.

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