Comment by bonestamp2
5 years ago
Agreed. I think the audience matters too -- different messages appeal to different people.
My dad is one of those old school guys who thinks law enforcement can do no wrong and nobody needs to hide anything unless they're doing something wrong. Even if that were true and I think it is true that many law enforcement personnel are trying to do good, that doesn't always mean the results will always reflect their intentions. When the sample size of facts is too small, as is often the case with mass collection, it's too easy for your sample to get mixed up with someone else's. Maybe your phone is the only other phone in the area when a murder is committed. That doesn't mean you did it, but it sure makes you look like the only suspect.
I was never able to gain an inch on his argument until I asked him why he has curtains on his living room window. I mean, it faces North, so there's no need to block intense sunlight, yet he closes them every night when he's sitting there reading a book or watching TV. Why? He's not doing anything illegal, yet he still doesn't want people watching him. He said he would not be ok with the Police standing at his window all night watching him. That's when he finally understood that digital privacy is not just for criminals, but for everyone who wants to exist in a peaceful state and not a police state.
> I was never able to gain an inch on his argument until I asked him why he has curtains on his living room window.
I'm not doing anything wrong, but I still close the door when I take a dump. The idea that someone wanting privacy means it is nefarious or wrong is ridiculous.
I never found this type of argument satisfying. It's more of an appeal to emotion than a rational reason.
In our culture we feel deep embarrassment if someone sees us using the toilet, but this is not universal across people and cultures, and honestly, it shouldn't be embarrassing. There's nothing inherently wrong with pooping. We irrationally feel embarrassment when we shouldn't have to.
This argument doesn't show any negative consequences of invasion of privacy. It's also not clear how it extrapolates to situations that don't involve toilets or nudity. If the problem is embarrassment, and people don't feel embarrassed that Facebook collects data, does that make it okay?
Obviously there are other arguments for privacy that do show potential harm. I find these more compelling.
> It's more of an appeal to emotion than a rational reason.
It sounds more respectable if you call it an 'intuition pump'. Whether or not it is rational to want to defecate privately, this point may lead some fraction of those whose mind was previously made up to reconsider their position. In those cases, it can be the beginning of a conversation.
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It's not just embarrassment. It's the loss of dignity that comes from having no control over who is allowed in your own personal space.
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> It's more of an appeal to emotion than a rational reason.
But that is precisely the rational reason. In a free society you want people to act freely. To be able to act freely it helps tremendously to not be under constant surveillance by authorities, powerful actors and/or personal and political enemies. If one happens to have the same cultural background or political ideas as all those on the other side and one is generally a careless nature it helps in not feeling threatened by that surveillance.
The new thing digital surveillance brought is the ability to automate and for search things that happened once. Where in communist Germany the state had to have a giant apparatus that would break into your flat and install microphones, have people constantly following you around and listening in on every word you said. The impact this has on a free exchange of ideas is quite obvious, isn't it? These things have become far less resource intensive in the age of the web.
And if you now say: "Yeah but they were communists" — that is the point. If you are hoping those in power will be respectful because your values (currently) align with theirs; or because your information is (currently) more useful to them when not disclosed to your enemies — then this is a very optimistic view of the world. But things can change, and not all have that sense of optimism.
Not having to think about whether somebody will knock your door with state police in a decade because of something you wrote online is the reason why privacy exist. Not having to censor yourself because you are afraid those fringe lunatics on the opposite political side will destroy your life is the reason why privacy exists. Not having to censor yourself because your violent husband reads everything you wrote is the reason why privacy exists.
So maybe you can read this as: Power that sees what you do can (and does) change how you act, even if they don't come after you. Not having them see you is a good way of not having to change.
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> I never found this type of argument satisfying. It's more of an appeal to emotion than a rational reason.
John Oliver used a similar tactic when speaking about Edward Snowden and the Patrioct Act. Instead of framing it about rights, pricacy and stuff, he talkes about dick picks. It kinda worked? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M
There are sanitary reasons for closing the door while pooping.
I thought we feel embarrassed pooping because of our animal instincts.
We shouldn't do many things but we do. If I feel embarrassed, it means I am vulnerable. I want to keep it to myself and I have the right to feel embarrassed, despite it being illogical. Humans aren't perfectly logical beings. If we were, there would be no discussions like this one.
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My dad doesn't close the door when he take a dump. That's the way he was raised and so that's how he does it.
That's not really the same thing. I close the door to the toilet because other people don't want to see it. I close the blinds when reading a book because they do want to see it.
While crass, that's a great way to put it. Why can't I just want my conversations to be private because eavesdropping without cause is icky. Just like in person.
that would be a nice way to get spies out of our data: flood them with pictures of our dumps :)
Any sufficiently advanced noise is indistinguishable from signal.
(... not saying dumps are advanced noise, but this is on the right track. Don't hide the needle. Produce more haystack)
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I went to a debate once, in which the former head of GCHQ (British equivalent of the NSA) argued that because agents weren't literally listening to people's phone calls, like the Stazi did, mass digital surveillance is fine. And unfortunately for many people this argument works. Human eavesdropping is obviously a problem at a viceral level, because somebody you don't know listening to you is frightening. The fact that digital surveillance gives power to its possessor just as much as human surveillance did is hard to get across.
Privacy is about control and power over your own existence and choices—just that its impact is usually long-term and most profound on a societal level but it starts at the most trivial aspects of life, like being able to sleep in safe, quiet place without any fear. So if data aggregation about you is automated, you still lose that control.
When an employer, for instance, is able to request data aggregation services for a break down about your entire life without or with forced consent from you, or able to monitor and analyze every step of yours during working hours, it's dehumanizing.
Similarly, it doesn't matter whether those with access to data regarding you have only good intentions. It may be pleasing to have a store know everything you like and need right in the moment, you still should be able to walk in and out (pseudo-)anonymously when you wish to.
Same with the state. We say not to talk to the police. In trials the determination what evidence can be submitted is always an important step. So why should the police, prosecution, intelligence agencies, or any other entity be able to access or collect data about you and evaluate it without due process?
This is hilariously cynical because GCHQ and the other letter agencies have had automated listening, recording, and analysis systems in place for decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
Privacy is simple. The "watcher" always without exception has a massive power imbalance in their favor. The first and often only line of defense against that power imbalance is the right to privacy.