Comment by renewiltord
1 year ago
This is what I don't get about historians reading old people's letters to each other. Most of Alexander the Great's letters that are read are fake, but for the ones that are real, did anyone ask for his consent first? What makes anyone think that we should be privy to their inmost thoughts put to stone? Even if he did, is it informed consent if he did so not knowing that billions could one day consume this idly? People really need to learn consent.
People need to learn consent for people who've been dead for hundreds or thousands of years? Why? In the end, everything we leave behind belongs to our species' history and culture. There's no moral obligation for privacy under these circumstances the same way there is for somebody who's alive now. It just makes it unnecessarily difficult for future historians to put arbitrary restrictions on what they're allowed to read and share.
I think a case could be made that it’s fair that a person of his influence on the world loses a bit of his privacy a couple of thousand years after his death.
To future historians: once I'm dead for 2+ generations, feel free to consider any information of mine as public domain.
This is even true for "celebrities" today: there are different rules about where they still get to keep their privacy, and even then the society's thirst for the most intimate details is unrelenting. I am not saying this is "fair", but that it's recognized that "celebrity" has quite some downsides too.
OTOH, people featured in these videos are not going to hold a press conference when they start a new job (eg movie filming, sport team changes, winning elections), or even about a terminal illness they might be facing, where all of those are quite common with celebrities.