[jpollock]

Humans lie all the time. We lie to each other, we lie to the government. We cheat, break rules and break laws all the time.

Societies rely on privacy to limit the intrusion of others into our lives. It becomes really easy to avoid enforcing a law when you can't see it happening.

For example, without privacy, sodomy laws become much easier to enforce. No longer would it be 2 closeted gay men living together happily, it would be acceptable for the government to setup a mobile array and detect that the two men were sharing a single bed, and then charge them with sodomy.

Another example. In New Zealand, prostitution is legal. However, income information and receipts are private between the business and the tax department. Visiting a prostitute is generally frowned upon publicly. So, what happens when all prostitutes are "outed", and their customer lists published? Is that a good thing? Is it just another way of making the job illegal again, with all of the societal ills that making it legal was intended to avoid?

For a US example, imagine publishing the health records from Planned Parenthood clinics - any and all. Venereal disease, birth control, abortion, anything.

I don't see how we can prevent intrusion of individuals and governments into private areas of life without a definition and expectation of privacy. Particularly when there are differing opinions on morality and what the government should do to enforce it.

[TeMPOraL]

> Humans lie all the time. We lie to each other, we lie to the government. We cheat, break rules and break laws all the time.

And this is fucking up things big time on this planet, and maybe it's high time for it to stop.

A lot of the problems you described have nothing to do with privacy, and are entirely because general population is bunch of hypocritical children. They get scandalized. It's a hallmark of a mature person that they don't get scandalized over things, but that they seek understanding instead.

If anything, sudden and total lack of privacy would show everyone just how hypocritical people are. How many of those against sodomy laws visit prostitutes? How many of those against prostitution are homosexual? Not saying that either is wrong - my point is that what privacy does is it creates power asymmetry. I can shame you all day long for your "sins" and you can't fight back because you don't know about mine. I'm not really convinced that the solution to this problem is more privacy.

Yes, telling people to grow up is a tall order, but I hope that as a civilization, we can reach it. And then, privacy will be something that isn't really needed much, and enforcing it only makes things less efficient.

That, and of course total impossibility of getting back the pre-industrial privacy levels while retaining XXI century technology.

[mystikal]

I feel like there are legitimate and illegitimate reasons for privacy and the illegitimate ones are compromising the legitimate ones.

I also think that a lot of the time, we willingly part with privacy (always-on syndrome), and that you can regain it pretty easily without having to fight the government - just go for a walk without your phone.

[miguelrochefort]

Are you arguing that it's my responsibility to be careful and discrete when I commit crimes that should be legal in the first place?

If both murder and sodomy are illegal to the eyes of the government, then wouldn't more accessible privacy protect both murderers and sodomists?

Clearly, the issues in the examples you describe are with the expectations of the government and its citizens. I don't want to ever have to lie about things I'm not ashamed of, and neither do I want to be ashamed of things I do. Society's foundation is Trust, and Trust starts with Honesty. We want everyone to be as honest as possible, and we should therefore change the system to motivate honesty. Only then will we have a clear picture of reality, human nature, and problems we ought to fix.

I want lying to be considered as the worst crime. I want a currency that's built on trust. I want every commitment and promises to be tracked and evaluated. I want fairness, and it starts with understanding reality.

We lie so much that we can't imagine a world without a right to it.

[TeMPOraL]

> I want lying to be considered as the worst crime. I want a currency that's built on trust. I want every commitment and promises to be tracked and evaluated. I want fairness, and it starts with understanding reality.

Hell yes. I too want people to start treating lying with seriousness it deserves. Lying, lying, lying. It's the thing that rots and destroys our societies. I too keep repeating that civilization starts and ends with trust. Trust people have in the system, towards their leaders, and towards each other. The less trust people have, the more defensive they get, more stupid things they do, and the less efficient everything becomes.

A perfect example is the growth of various anti-science movements, anti-vaccination being a prominent case. Where do you think it comes from? Many like to say that anti-vaxxers are simply stupid, can't comprehend biology or are motivated reasoners. But the reality is simpler, and you can see it by just observing them carefully. They are normal people, like everyone else. They want to be healthy and happy. They want their children to be healthy and happy. The only real difference is that they had their trust in authority broken on a serious level. They don't trust doctors, scientific consensus and government health organizations.

Is this surprising? Frankly, no. Because all of those authorities lie. They lie fucking big, and then they lie small. Not a day goes by when we don't hear about corrupt politicians, when we don't see bullshit papers published in respected journals, when we don't learn a drug is a scam, or plain dangerous. Governments lie, and so do businesses, big and small. They lie in ads, they cheat in stores, they sell us crap - from grocery store washing stale meat in dishwasher fluid through planned obsolescence to good old lying about specs and working hard to silence disgruntled customers.

Frankly, I sometimes wonder why I still trust anyone but people I know personally. I'd like to say that it's because of education, because I can evaluate claims critically. But it's bullshit - a dedicated liar will run circles around everyone but the few smartest people. The truth is, I'm talking a calculated risk every day. And so are the anti-vaxxers. They end up hurting people. But that's not because they're evil or stupid. It's because they've broken under the avalanche of lies.

[miguelrochefort]

I completely agree with you.

In a future where "proofs" will be manufactured easily, you can only trust witnesses. For that to work, you need to know that person says the truth. The most in-demand traits for a person (or smart agent or service) in the future will be "trust" (honesty, predictability, reliability).

In a world too complex to do everything yourself (milk the cow, mill the wheat, grow the tomatoes, to make a pizza), we need specialization and delegation. Again, delegating can only be seamless when interacting with parts whose "trust" is effectively tracked and measured.

The donated organ won't go to the first person to ask for it, or the person with the most money. It will go to the best human, whose value might be tightly correlated with their trust score.

Big data, IoT, AI. All the big technologies of the present and future will increasingly rely on our ability to predict the future. That's pretty much what logistics is. You can't predict the future without a reliable system. Again, your predictions are just as solid as the weakest member in your chain. One component lies (or doesn't do as promised), and the whole prediction breaks. That could mean minutes of commuting lost, or millions of people dead. Don't lie, kids.

We need a more general term that encompasses more than just lying. A person needs to accurately understand his abilities in order to commit to a task. Failing to do so affects one's score as if they did lie. I don't see them as being different things. If you misinterpret something and communicate that interpretation, that's also a "lie".

In any case, I think the human brain is losing a lot of energy trying to decide what to say and not say, and whether what an other person say is sincere, polite, or plainly misleading. We're not as smart as we could be, because of this social cancer. That's probably what destroys kids as they grow.

Being honest at a job interview is a sure way not to get the job. Better study the buzzwords the day before and bullshit your way thought. Repeat if you want to reach the top.

[tremon]

> Clearly, the issues in the examples you describe are with the expectations of the government and its citizens. I don't want to ever have to lie about things I'm not ashamed of

That's wonderfully magnanimous of you. But do you think it's reasonable to expect all your fellow citizens to hold that same conviction? Just because you value things that way, doesn't make it applicable to everyone. What I hear you saying is that if everyone would just conform to your worldview, you'd have a much easier time living in it. Or do you think that your view is universal already?

Also, privacy isn't a citizen vs government thing. Privacy is an expression of the power that every individual holds in every interpersonal relationship: the choice to share with or withhold information from another. And that is a personal choice.

Ideologies like "you should not judge" are at least as old as the Bible, yet we still haven't overcome it. In fact, judging from most Twitter stories I hear of (or 4chan/reddit subcultures), I'd say we have seriously regressed as a society in that matter. Please have a solution for solving hate campaigns and other forms of harassment first, before suggesting that we remove discretionary power from every individual.

[nunyabuizness]

>I want a currency that's built on trust. I want every commitment and promises to be tracked and evaluated. I want fairness, and it starts with understanding reality.

I'm working this exact problem right now and would love your input. Email me at sunny.gonna at google's mail service.