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Comment by eru | Hacker News Reader

You say it like applying that label automatically makes it a bad thing.

See https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/galton-ehrlich-buck for an elaboration.

So far, the gathering of great deals of data on people has not been used for purposes that benefit such people. For example, one of the biggest uses of mass surveillance and data collection is to improve the targeting of marketing, which generally does not benefit the people being marketed to, and indeed often is done to their detriment.

And then a side effect of all of this is that this huge mass of data is just sitting there to be used for even more nefarious purposes. I can easily imagine a world where an end user is required to submit their genetic data in order to prove their age for an age-controlled app, for example.

Sure, you can imagine it, but you should be able to imagine better solutions too. Far easier to ask for a government ID, or better yet, have a third party, which is trusted, use a cross-check, so that the raw data is never shared, just a binary, yes/no to the age check.

If we only imagine the bad outcomes, we'll miss on many good ones. And part of those misses will be worse bad outcomes. For example, if you object to the creation of a third party that could validate your age, what you get is a direct ask for your ID, which is the current reality and far worse.

I really don’t want to be forced to contract with a third party in order to do basic things like be able to buy something in a store.

I guess you don't like paying with a credit card?

> So far, the gathering of great deals of data on people has not been used for purposes that benefit such people.

Do you know how they make shoes or clothing off-the-rack that fit most people?

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