I think what the author is trying to say is that if you live an open life with few secrets, then your life will be less stressful. He's encouraging us to really reevaluate what we keep secret b/c when you sit down to think about it, it's most likely all in your head.
That's because you're an average Joe.
And even you, you use a pseudonymous account name here on HN.
Now think of all the lives of change-makers, dissidents, activists etc that were fucked up with the use of such private information (from their sexual preferences to who they meet), under all kinds of regimes, in the US and abroad.
Try reading how some of the pioneers of civil rights for blacks were treated, for example, what kind of files were kept on them, how they were setup and pressured etc. It's not like MLK emerged from nowhere, said "I have a dream" and everybody cheered and that was that.
Heck, you don't even have to go that far. Even opinions expressed on HN can get people fired from their jobs if they go public. Even mild ones, including mere jokes said in private: a guy was fired for telling a "dongle" joke to his friend at a conference -- because someone eavesdropped.
Plus, your notion pressuposes that things will always be totally fine (save a "dystopian future"), and nothing will ever make citizens question the government, big corporations, etc. Which does not hold, really. From McCarthyism to the Civil Rights movement, down to the Vietnam War protests and recent stuff like Occupy Wall Street, there's always such discord, and there will be even more in a future with rising inequality and diminishing middle class.
Hundrends of millions (perhaps including you) might continue to be oblivious to all this (as they were oblivious about Vietnam War protests and/or rock n' roll in rural Idaho), but tens of millions were and will be affected.
And I think this article is written targeting the average Joe. Everyone is getting off on tangents about how the gov't is going to go fascist and that privacy is the best thing in the world.
He isn't arguing that privacy is inherently bad, or you should never ever have secrets. Yeah, if your trying to overthrow an fascist regime, it makes sense to have secrets. But again, that's a contrived reason. If you're MLK, that's not really the norm.
The point Mr.Sivers making is - generally people have more secrets than they really need and in the process they're making their lives more stressful. He's suggesting trying to re-evulate your need for privacy (I'm repeating myself).
It's just a call for some self reflection. Everyone needs to chill out a bit.
You don't get it: You can't have democracy in a surveillance state.
It's nonsensical: In what way do you propose to not make the subject of surveillance disempowered?
The key is that government should be unable to prevent you from excercising your rights to action despite knowing that you want to change things. If you really need to conspire in secrecy, then it's probably already too late for anything other than an armed revolution to fix that.
>The key is that government should be unable to prevent you from exercising your rights to action
No that's not the key. Severely impairing your ability to act or discouraging action by causing pain is essentially as effective as outright prohibition as is lowering someone's public esteem.
Good fences make good neighbors.
It's not because I dislike my neighbors, I just like being able to not look at them and enjoy my home in privacy.
I'd happily share 99% (maybe even all) of my life with the whole world, every step taken and every breath taken, but that would be on my terms. (I kinda am, by agreeing to everything Google asks of me)
Would James Buchanan have a chance at becoming the President of the Unites States in today's society? Assuming he actually was gay: would a 2013 version of James Buchanan be able to keep that a secret if the right person in the right chain of command happened to be ill-willed?
What in general would you say people keep secret that adds to their stress?
Maybe some people here on HN might be over the top paranoid, but Joe Average? Sure, maybe they shouldn't have that secret affair and hide it from their spouse, but they probably already know that's a bad thing.
That's a contrived reason too.
For one, it SHOULD be the norm. "Be the change you want to see in the world" and everything. It's not just something to pay lip service to.
Second, it doesn't matter if it "only" affects only 1 in 100,000, because what those 1 in 100,000 do affects millions of lives themselves. Heck, MLK was 1 in 250,000,000 and he affected the whole of the US.
>The point Mr.Sivers making is - generally people have more secrets than they really need and in the process they're making their lives more stressful. He's suggesting trying to re-evulate your need for privacy (I'm repeating myself).
Given the widespread violations of privacy, such an attitude is harmful even on the personal level. It can be seen as essentially a "giving up" to pressure from the goverment/spying corporations like Google.
But it gets worse, because it's also quite trivial, and the example he gives is bad. His friend might not mind showing him her "private notebook", because he is just a friend (probably not even a close one at that, since all of the stuff she wrote, he said it was irrelevant to him).
How about showing that same notebook to her husband, her children, her parents, her boss, close friends, some person she writes negatively about etc? Despite her giving lip service to openess, there's a reason she reffered to it as "ultra secret".
There are lots of secrets people want to have. And not just some MLK types: hundrends of millions of people.
How about trying to smoke a joint in the privacy of your own home?
According to some stats, tens of millions have done it, including in states that it's illegal. Should they all go to jail?
Or have an affair without your partner knowing?
Or what if sometime you visited a prostitute?
Or tell your friend that your boss is a jerk?
Or watch porn? Perhaps even kinky Japanese tentacle stuff.
Or write a comment against GOP / Obama in an internet forum.
Or discover you're gay at puberty and not announce your friends/parents until you decide the time is right?
Are you allowed to all these "secrets" (and tons more)? Why the fuck should anybody else, and especially the government, have this information on you?
Only a puritan society, that thinks all such stuff as "immoral" would see as OK to not be able to have secrects on such matters ("cheating on your partner? That's bad, and they should now it").
As for, "how the gov't is going to go fascist" -- who said it isn't already in certain aspects? Fascism is not a "take it all or leave it affair", you can pick and choose from it's practices. A basic characteristic of fascism was spying on their own citizens. And there are lots of others (e.g the ratio of incarceration and the militarization of police force is unprecedented in a regular Western democracy like France, Britain and co).
At no point does the author mention the government and at no point does he mention making every aspect of your life public.
Seems like most of the people replying either didn't read the article and they just want to vent. There are legitimate reason to have secrets, and there are reasons that are stressors and actually serve no purpose.
Completely different topic:
"Be the change you want to see in the world"
I didn't think anyone actually believe that literally till now. You want everyone to picks and chooses what laws to abide by?
The reality is that punishment goes into the cost benefit analysis everyone does. For example: Say I believe I should have the right to hire a prostitute. Should I do it out of principle? How about if I don't want to risk going to jail? Is that not a valid reason?
In this case I'm okay with having my right infringed, because I realize that it's not just my world to live in, and we as a society agree on some rules - some of which I don't like.
No, but others in this discussion did (mention both) -- a discussion is not constrained by exactly what served to start it, it explores other tangents. Especially in this case, it was inevitable that TFA's advice, while meant for personal use, also had to be considered in relation with the current privacy issues in general.
>"Be the change you want to see in the world" I didn't think anyone actually believe that literally till now. You want everyone to picks and chooses what laws to abide by?
No, I want everyone to fight against injustice and for his principles, instead of self-identifying as an "average Joe" (only concerned with his personal affairs).
>In this case I'm okay with having my right infringed, because I realize that it's not just my world to live in, and we as a society agree on some rules - some of which I don't like.
Perhaps, but there's still a huge part of life, involving perhaps 100% of the population, that's against some law or another. From a 19-yo drinking beer with his friends, to a guy ripping of a DVD using DeCSS, to Kerouac using his drugs and America getting a literary masterpiece out of it. And to millions of gays, for example, having sex besides sodomy being a crime back in the day ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_State... ).
What makes society tolerable is that not all those laws are (or can) be 100% enforced all the time. A total lack of privacy brings any of those "offenses" towards being discoverable and punishable, which is a dystopia in itself.
I bet your own mind isn't an open book, you have desires and wants, knowledge, aspirations, and things that belong solely to you. This isn't to be looked down upon, everything shouldn't be an open book for the world to read and judge upon and they should belong to you. That isn't unhealthy, it doesn't mark a lack of moral character, it's your own internal conversation, and frankly, more people need to learn how to work within themselves instead of making everything an open book for everyone else to judge and comment on like they are the Kardashians.
But what about someone with mental health problems? Depression or anxiety? A past drug addiction, or merely alcoholism? A criminal record? How about something as "innocuous" as a drunken one night stand while in a committed relationship? Is it so difficult to imagine how, if widely known, these facts might impact someone's ability to hold down a job, or their relationship with their neighbors?
For other people who do have things they'd rather keep private, it's not just in their head-- it can have a wide variety of implications in your interactions with people & society if it becomes common knowledge. If nothing else people will look at you differently. And a lot of it has happened in the past and is unchangeable, and therefore unactionable in the present.
As truth becomes the norm, the value of lies becomes greater. If you lie constantly your lies have less value, than if you tell truth but lie about important facts.
IMO Truly open society can only be established if faking a signal is impossible. Which I doubt it will ever be.
Good enough for me!
As far as "enemies trying to ruin lives", it's wonderful that you are so privileged as to even be able to think of that as "contrived", but you would do well to pay attention to other people's situations.
It could also mean reevaluating what you've made public, and deciding what should be secret.
> It could also mean reevaluating what you've made public, and deciding what should be secret.
aka chilling effect - surely you're not seriously advocating for it?
"Dystopia" wouldn't seem so contrived to residents of East Germany under the Stasi. We're not speaking in hypotheticals. There is precedent for societies using the available technology to erode privacy as much as possible.
"Enemies trying to ruin lives" wouldn't seem so contrived to some people who've had abusive, stalker exes. Read about some of the things people do for personal vendettas. It may not have happened to you, but it probably happened to somebody you know.
"I think what the author is trying to say is that if you live an open life with few secrets, then your life will be less stressful." Until someone unexpectedly uses your personal information to materially harm your well-being. Then your life becomes much more stressful.
You consider yourself part of the 'in' group. I follow all the rules, why would anyone bother me? And that works fine until one day it doesn't. The day that happens you'll get no help from the other people that think the way you do.
It's one thing to never have been persecuted or discriminated against yourself, but it's not really excusable to be so completely unaware of your own privilege and sheltered life.
The world doesn't need to know your sexual quirks, or your bank balance, and you shouldn't feel the need to broadcast it.
People I interact with know I have a wife, they don't need to know her favorite lube or position. That is crude and unnecessary, and a society that expects that knowledge and welcomes it with open arms has a major root issue.
Nicely done.