Comment by spindritf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spindritf | Hacker News Reader

What if they don't care? Not because it's "designed" or "rigged" but because privacy is not something they value?

Humans lived in small groups, then villages pretty much until yesterday, easily for most of our species' history (99%+ of ~200k years). People knew everything about each other. And then gossiped to make sure nothing went unnoticed.

Contrary to the article, we probably still reveal less than we used to. People would bathe in semi-public places. That's not common outside of vacation spots any more.

Yes, advertisers bank on our nature. Gossip blogs bank on it. But they didn't make us that way.

OK, so the nature of information collection changed but we don't feel it. Some people can rationally appreciate it but not casual Internet users. And most nightmare scenarios are still hypothetical.

Imagine being subject of public hate because you expressed a unpopular view when you were young.

Many people, even here, are fine with that. On Twitter it's practically a part of regular programming.

I think it's a flaw to bring in village life in pre-modern time in the context of the meaning of privacy. For one, in that context what information one shares is apparent and the impact of the information is more readily understood. This is not the case when large volumes of data are shared with unknowable powerful parties, used in unmonitored ways with effects that one cannot predict or control.

Secondly, we do not live in a small community, we have an incredibly interconnected world. Democracy does not function well when people lose the capacity to moderate access of information about ourselves, our thoughts and communications to some degree, when other parties may use that information against the individual. It stunts individual expression and that is pretty fundamental to living a modern society.

It's incredibly naive to undervalue the need and importance of privacy. Nightmare scenarios are not hypothetical to a lot of people, they are acting out right now, each and every day.

Some one in a village back then could be pretty sure that someone in another village 500 miles away would not get to hear something they objected to and come 500 miles to punish them for something they might not have any problem with. If a local villager objects, there is a chance of face to face conversation and resolution according to local customs.

Im not sure but I think people want privacy more now because they are more concerned about the consequences of faceless people ruining their lives for reasons they don't know or understand, that actual local privacy.

I live in UK village, and I want privacy because I am not an American and I dont expect to be subject to US law which from my POV is a very disturbing and frightening thing. OK, we Brits need to deal with our UK/US relationship at a political level, but even so, I am happy for most of my life to be known to those around me, but I sure as hell dont want some Yank spook having anything on me whatsoever. I assume Americans dont want British spooks having info on them either.

Over all though, I do think its new uncontrolled consequences people are scared of.

Beyond the fact that humans have lived in small groups for almost the entirety of our existence, even in the brief flicker of time where that hasn't been the case, people who can afford to do so have hired domestic workers. In a world with a 1.25 billion Facebook users it's hard to pretend that being unknown is a huge human priority in and of itself.

Generally, the core problem that the more thoughtful people who are concerned about privacy point to is how certain actors (governments, corporations, doxing mobs) are being empowered at the expense of individuals. If that is one's concern it might make sense to get to the root of the problem and work towards limit the power of these actors directly.

Power imbalance is something that social animals designed to live in small groups would seem to care about deeply.

The point is not weather people are fine with it or not, the point was if they aren't they should have that choice to control the things they share. you dont always know what will come and bite you in the ass after a while. In my country, there has been an active targeted killing going on of a particular sect of the mainstream religion, We don't know who is involved, but in conditions like this, even information such trivial can be vital for your security.

While it may be true that the villagers knew everything about each other, the king had no way of knowing their utmost secrets. Heck, he probably didn't know their names, or how many of them there were exactly. The situation is different now, the boundary of locality has been dissolved.

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