The real problem is that this argument relies on people actually meaning “anything”. It’s a strawman that’s so good, you get people actually trying to argue it, but the real argument isn’t about absolute publicity of information, it’s about providing access to additional information as a means to investigate wrongdoing. Very few people are practically suggesting every single fact ought to be public about a person.
Besides, doomsaying that “anything could be illegal!” isn’t backed by anything real or lasting.
>"anything [harmful] could be illegal!" isn't backed by anything real or lasting
Are you serious? that's a pretty ahistoric view... Being jewish was illegal, being a free black person was illegal, shit, woman having freedom of medical procedure is illegal in some states today!
how on earth can you earnestly suggest things won't be made illegal that will harm people
And that usually happens quickly and with zero casualties? I'm sure that Alan Touring would be thrilled to learn that years later his nation has stopped castrating gay people.
Progress also isn't linear, backlash over transgender identity has gotten worse recently. People are being prosecuted over abortions that would have been legal a year ago. None of the people who are in those positions are going to be comforted by knowing that eventually someday other people won't be attacked for the same reasons.
Self correction protects the future; privacy protects the present. They're not interchangeable.
Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero? We don’t apply that kind of logic to any other aspect of risk management, why would that be the bar here?
And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present. Their whole argument is, “what if stuff you like is made illegal in the future?!?!” with absolutely no tether to realit
> Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero?
Fair enough. What is the acceptable number of casualties then? Do you have a number of people in mind that you think would need to be killed or harmed before you would agree that privacy is worthwhile?
> And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present.
This is a pretty big misunderstanding of what we're saying. Privacy protects against future threats, yes. At the point when you are experiencing those threats, they will be in the present. And at that point, privacy will protect you. Whether you want to call that the future or the present, whatever. I don't care, it doesn't matter.
In contrast, self correction does not protect you. Self correction is about the overall direction of society -- at the point where you are threatened, whether that's a threat in the present or in the future, the tendency of society to eventually stop doing awful things is of no protection at all to you.
Privacy is not a substitute for social change, but social change is also not a substitute for privacy. Social change is the thing that happens after people die. If you want to protect the people who are actually dying (see above, maybe you don't think that's worthwhile) then you need privacy.
> with absolutely no tether to reality
Just as a quick sidenote, there are people being charged for previously legal abortions right now. Maybe you don't think those people are worth protecting in the short term and we should accept the downsides and rely on eventually society changing and say "oh well."
But that's very different than saying that the risk isn't real. The only way that you could say that "what if a thing you like is made illegal" doesn't have a basis in reality is if you really aren't paying attention to reality in the US right now. None of this is theoretical, people are very literally getting prosecuted for abortions right now because Facebook doesn't E2EE its messages.
How many people do you think is an acceptable level of loss for cars to be justified?
How many people need to die because their medical information wasn't available quickly enough to deliver life saving treatment in time?
Pedophiles are walking free right now because the criminal justice system can't gain access to their computers to prove what it otherwise painfully obvious; they're hurting children.
I can make exactly the same arguments you're making here, just in the opposite direction. That doesn't mean I'm right or you are; the argument that anyone being harmed means an idea is not worth doing is pointless and doesn’t provide anything remotely resembling a reasonable view into the issue, but pretending like any loss at all is unacceptable, such as you're doing here, is a farce.
> but pretending like any loss at all is unacceptable, such as you're doing here, is a farce.
There's a weird transformation that this conversation has gone through. As a reminder it started out with you saying "besides, doomsaying that 'anything could be illegal!' isn’t backed by anything real or lasting."
Which is just false. And I'm not sure where I or frankly anyone else in this thread has suggested that even just a single person being hurt means that privacy is an existential problem. Quite the opposite, I accepted the premise that there's a threshold, asked you what your opinion of that threshold was, and responded to you saying:
> Every time in modern history western society has started down the path of outlawing some form of existence, we self correct.
and
> Their whole argument is, “what if stuff you like is made illegal in the future?!?!” with absolutely no tether to realit[y]
by pretty objectively correctly pointing out that this doesn't change anything for anyone caught out in the current situation and that, yeah, things being made illegal in the future is a completely realistic concern with countless historical examples backing it up.
Of course we balance concerns about safety. I still use a phone and participate in society, I'm using my real name online right now. Ironically, I'm being less pseudonymous than you are right now. Very clearly I am not saying that a single person dying means we all need to go live in the woods.
But "what is an acceptable level of sacrifice for convenience" really doesn't have anything to do with the argument "I have nothing to hide." If someone dismisses concerns about car safety or medical accessibility or criminal activity by saying that those dangers aren't real, then they'd be very much in the wrong. And it's equally wrong to dismiss privacy concerns by saying that concerns about future erosion of rights "aren't tethered to reality." They are a thing that happens. They're real, just as real as car accidents. So no you don't have to stop driving, but you should wear a seatbelt, look both ways before you cross the street, and use an encrypted messenger on your phone.
The negative consequences of incomplete privacy are certainly real, they’re just not nearly as numerous as you seem to believe.
I can and I will dismiss the kinds of privacy concerns that rely on me being unable to understand how risk works, that rely on me falsely believing a solution to any problem exists with zero downside, that rejects any decision that has even one casualty.
I tried to show you how futile a game of, “your idea hurts people” is, but you seem incapable of moving past it. What a shame.
Holy crud, HN has been weird lately :) So I learned today that suggesting Facebook should encrypt its messenger app is actually just me embracing a fantasy about the nature of safety and risk.
I don't know I feel like you're probably 3 messages away from telling me that I should remove my smoke alarms from my house because house fires are uncommon and then calling me deluded because I wear a helmet when I go biking. I didn't realize that me taking 30 seconds to install Signal and then using it to chat with my friends was a futile rebellion against the natural order ;)
Okay apologies, I really don't mean to be snarky. But you've taken this conversation in a very strange direction that I don't think is representative of what anyone who rejects the "I have nothing hide" narrative actually believes. I would just point out once again, I am less pseudonymous than you are right now. I'm using my real name, I have more contact information listed on my profile. Very obviously I am willing to publish information about myself. So the context of this conversation really just does not align with this view you've gotten that the people disagreeing with you are just privacy absolutists who think any privacy risk at all is too large to take.
If you're saying that someone is rejecting all risk and refusing to accept a privacy system with any downside, and at the same time you notice that they're actively and deliberately publishing their real name and email address, then that should give you pause and it should make you step back and think, "maybe I don't understand what their argument is." Maybe when that person points out that risks exist they're saying something more than "any risk is too much risk".
You compared using Whatsapp to wearing a seatbelt; the problem with this analogy is that many, MANY more people die in car accidents than from... whatever abstract value me using Whatsapp will provide you, a complete stranger.
You're failing to understand that the conversation does not end just because someone is harmed by something. You, and society generally, do not consider "one single negative outcome" to be enough of a reason to not do anything.
We can't get past this. You must either accept this as an observation about reality, or you will not understand whatever other direction this conversation may go.
> You, and society generally, do not consider "one single negative outcome" to be enough of a reason to not do anything.
Like I said, this is a completely incorrect reading of my position, and it should be obvious to you that it's incorrect because I'm taking privacy risks right now. If I believed that "a single negative outcome" was enough privacy risk to justify not doing something, I wouldn't be talking to you right now, I'd be living in the woods and shooting drones out of the sky. But I'm not, so very clearly you are missing something about my views.
> whatever abstract value me using Whatsapp will provide you, a complete stranger.
Collective usage of E2EE makes it easier for other people to blend into the crowd and makes usage of E2EE messaging less suspicious. This is not exactly hard to understand and it's not abstract. It's the same reason why many cisgender people list pronouns when filling out profiles on new services -- it's a very low-cost way to make it so that transgender users aren't singling themselves out.
Collective normalization of E2EE also encourages people who aren't technically inclined and who are just following network effects to switch over to better messengers, which makes them safer without forcing them to become privacy experts.
And of course, when we talk about the "nothing to hide" fallacy, we mean more than "your actions as a stranger benefit me" -- we're pointing out that the risk analysis most people do about privacy risks is flawed and over-optimistic and advising you that you might want to redo that risk analysis. For comparison, you wearing a helmet when you ride your bicycle won't keep me safe, but the safety benefits to you outweigh the downsides and you should still probably wear one anyway. Because people feel invincible about accidents even though they're very much not.
Your argument relies on "one single negative outcome" to be enough of a reason not to do anything. Obviously I know you live incongruously with your argument; that's my entire point! Glad you're figuring that out, but that doesn't mean your argument suddenly has merit, just because you're aware of how bad it is.
I'm not missing anything, you're just failing to resolve your internal inconsistency.
Look, your risk analysis of privacy harms does not become accurate just because you say it is. Saying that this is "one single negative outcome" a bunch of times doesn't make it true.
Pretty much the entirety of recorded human history backs up the idea that privacy matters, including the present where state governments are currently campaigning hospitals and social platforms to identify transgender people and to prosecute abortions.
Your risk analysis is wrong. That's what people are pointing out to you. We're not privacy absolutists, obviously we are not privacy absolutists. We are not suddenly having a realization about incongruity, it's honestly just really silly to suggest that this entire disagreement boils down to me seeing one trans person die and suddenly thinking "never again, no cost is too great." Take a step back out of the weeds and think about whether it's actually likely that anyone believes that :) That is not and has never been the argument, I haven't seen anyone in this entire thread even in sibling comments make that argument.
What we've all been pointing out is that the eventual arc of justice in the universe is unhelpful to people who are suffering right now, and that your risk analysis about the likelihood of people being put into that position is wrong. But go on, tell me again that this is actually a deep philosophical disagreement and I haven't internalized that safety measures involve tradeoffs.
You can call me wrong, you can claim you’re not arguing that one casualty is too many, but your actual argument remains that any negative consequences of giving up some privacy for substantive benefit are infinitesimally small yet somehow not worth the real value provided.
Stop trying to explain how your current argument isn’t what it clearly is, and make a better one!
What you think is a minor risk is a much larger risk than you suppose. And your analysis of the downsides of privacy improvements are wrong as well:
It takes 30 seconds to install Signal. There is no substantive benefit to Facebook's messenger not being E2EE. Privacy is not the reason why it's hard for you to get a copy of your medical records or migrate accounts across services. There is no massive substantive social benefit to advertisers tracking you across the web, and your life is not going to suddenly get worse if you install an adblocker.
This is the equivalent of putting on a bicycle helmet, getting a vaccine, wearing a seatbelt. It's not hard and it doesn't hurt you and the risks of ignoring clearly established safeguards are greater than you think. Your math is wrong.
> Stop trying to explain how your current argument isn’t what it clearly is
:D That is one way to approach a discussion, but it's not one I feel particularly obligated to take seriously or treat respectfully. I'm not really interested in having an argument about whether or not I'm lying to you when I tell you what exactly I believe. That would be a pointlessly inane, obviously unproductive waste of time.
I didn't know we were allowed to just say what the other person believes and then double down when they explain otherwise. If that kind of nonsense is allowed, then I've got to say that I think it's really weird that you've been secretly objecting to privacy on purely religious grounds the whole time :)
Your argument relies on the miscalculation of risk, and now exposed you can’t even actually articulate an alternative reason why privacy is so important.
> Your argument relies on the miscalculation of risk
:shrug: Six million Jews would like a word with you.
If that's not enough, consider that there might be a reason why we literally have laws preventing the requirement of disclosure of sex/race in hiring today? Consider the countless studies about how anonymity benefits the ability of oppressed groups (particularly women) to participate in public spaces online, consider that the Supreme Court has very directly said that anonymity and privacy are an essential component of 1st Amendment rights. You also still really haven't grappled with the fact that multiple states today are pushing to get access to medical records and social media messages both to prosecute people and label minority groups. These are not issues that are affecting only one or two people.
And again, the "benefit" that we're giving up by being more private is negligible. There's very little downside to encrypting messages or blocking ad networks from tracking people. The entirety of recorded human history disagrees with your risk analysis, in addition to pretty much every single 1st Amendment expert and minority advocacy/anti-hate group today. Your math is wrong.
> So you admit your argument is predicated on the number of people who are harmed.
What, yeah, of course it is. What on earth are you talking about, which part of "your math is wrong" didn't you understand?
Lack of privacy hurts people. Not one or two people, it hurts a lot of people. It might hurt you one day. And that's worth caring about. It's worth caring about because it's a lot of people. If you didn't realize that I was talking about risk/harms then you really didn't understand a word I was saying.
Yes, I'm talking about risk. Your math about the risk is wrong. It's not a gotcha that it's apparently taken you to this point in the conversation to understand that "your math is wrong" means "your analysis of the number of people that are hurt by lack of privacy is incorrect."
> and since then, society has improved in gigantic leaps and bounds.
Society has improved slowly, via heavy investment from anonymous activists and advocates who put themselves in harms way to improve it. Every single one of those activist movements relied on privacy. Quite frankly, there really aren't many examples of social movements that have improved society that haven't heavily used privacy and anonymity to aid them. Certainly at the very least this displays a startling lack of knowledge about the history of race and gender in America.
> is no longer possible in the western world
:) Citation very, very much needed. We have a political party in America with members who are openly calling for the extermination of transgender identity, headed by a political ideologue who's currently being prosecuted for (essentially) attempting a coup. Despite that he's still favored to be the next presidential nominee of that party because the majority of that party doesn't view attempting a coup as disqualifying from office.
It is incredibly naive to believe that we are no longer capable of doing terrible things in America to oppressed identities or capable of building political and social apparatus to do those terrible things.
> Every time in modern history western society has started down the path of outlawing some form of existence, we self correct.
And as I said, that self correction is of no benefit whatsoever for the 6 million Jews that died. Self correction is not protection. Privacy is protection.
You had to go back 80 years to find an example of a lack of privacy hurting enough people to make your point, and that's my point.
We don't have things like WW2 happen anymore, and living our life like the next Holocaust is just around the corner is paranoid and overly cynical.
We really did seem to learn that lesson. Your own example of trans rights is a great one; laws protecting trans people are enshrined in many US states already, and courts are annihilating many of the attempts made to the contrary.
We stumble, but we move forward, and without the loss of millions of people this time. Progress.
The question isn't about whether the trans-identified have their basic rights. Of course they do, like every other citizen. It's about whether they should be granted extra rights, particularly those that override the existing rights of women.
For example, should a trans-identifying male criminal have the right to be incarcerated in women's prisons? Some female prisoners have already suffered rapes and sexual assaults from such males, in states that granted this right to the them.
> You had to go back 80 years to find an example of a lack of privacy hurting enough people to make your point, and that's my point.
> Society has improved slowly, via heavy investment from anonymous activists and advocates who put themselves in harms way to improve it. Every single one of those activist movements relied on privacy. Quite frankly, there really aren't many examples of social movements that have improved society that haven't heavily used privacy and anonymity to aid them. Certainly at the very least this displays a startling lack of knowledge about the history of race and gender in America.
> If that's not enough, consider that there might be a reason why we literally have laws preventing the requirement of disclosure of sex/race in hiring today? Consider the countless studies about how anonymity benefits the ability of oppressed groups (particularly women) to participate in public spaces online, consider that the Supreme Court has very directly said that anonymity and privacy are an essential component of 1st Amendment rights. You also still really haven't grappled with the fact that multiple states today are pushing to get access to medical records and social media messages both to prosecute people and label minority groups. These are not issues that are affecting only one or two people.
I'm curious, do you have any examples at all of equal-rights movements that haven't used privacy and anonymity to help protect themselves as they accomplished their goals? Because I can't think of any. Social progress isn't magic, it happens because people make it happen, and they very often rely on privacy to protect themselves during those transitions.
Do you think we could get rid of laws banning employers from asking about race/identity on job applications and it would just be fine and there would be no downsides? We got those laws for a reason -- namely because without them there would be a huge increase in discrimination. And again, ask any anti-discrimination advocacy group whether or not anonymity matters today for protecting marginalized people.
If your opinion is that anything less than the genocide of 6 million people is no longer worth worrying about, then that is a wild perspective to have that I think the vast majority of Americans (and people in general) would disagree with. Privacy did not become irrelevant after WW2 ended.
----
> and courts are annihilating many of the attempts made to the contrary.
Citation needed. Anti-trans legislation has accelerated in many states, not deaccelerated. It's by no means certain that that the situation won't get worse. A reminder that people said "the courts will shut it down" about abortion-rights challenges too.
In the meantime, doxing and violence against transgender people is at a nearly all-time high and people are stalking doctors.
Ask the transgender community sometime whether or not they think that privacy matters for them. I guarantee they will not agree with your assessment of the situation.
Cool. Real question, and truly think about it deep and hard: are you okay with being the martyr who ends up jailed, prosecuted, dead or what-have-you before we self correct?
These statements are very easy to make, but when push comes to shove the individuals saying it won't put their money where their mouth is. So, will you?
Someone once said to me, it is easy to be enlightened when you have a full belly.
In the same vein, it is easy to grant social gains when in easy times. But we are in the liminal space between the boom of the 20th century and the blow back from same century of reckless growth.
Nowadays a lot of nationalistic rhetoric that would not have flown far has had a lot of traction over the last decade or so. And it is slowly becoming obvious that the frameworks for oppression are being constructed.
The idea that we can only go forwards with minor trips along the way is a very narrow interpretation of history. That the example given before was of the Nazis is especially accurate considering it came after the Weinmar Republic that was known to be particularly ahead of the times in terms of social progress and cultural facets. It could be argued that wouldn't be for almost another 70-80 years that they gained back what was taken away in next to now time.
Unfortunately, the one thing I have taken away from those that work as war correspondents - do not under estimate how fragile society is and how quickly people will turn against others to try and ensure personal safety.
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.”
― Albert Camus"
Besides, doomsaying that “anything could be illegal!” isn’t backed by anything real or lasting.