[onion2k]

Let's assume for a moment that we can create a society with the most perfect law-making government, and that all laws are now perfect, and they're perfectly enforced.

Would people still want privacy?

I believe that the answer is yes. Simply because there will always be the fear that things may change. You only need one imperfect law or law enforcer and you need privacy to protect you. There will never be a point where we can give up privacy, even if everything else is perfect.

Also, arguably, if there were perfect laws then the fact people have privacy or don't have privacy would make no difference so we might as well have it.

[TeMPOraL]

In this imaginary world, would you really be worried about the future like that? Would that be a reasonable fear? And if things would suddenly turn dystopian, do you really expect privacy would protect you from an evil government hell-bent on getting you?

Privacy seems to be a mitigation strategy. An insurance for the future, as 'jib said. It may seem like it's in your best interest to pursue it. But it is also worth considering whether this isn't a coordination problem - where the locally best choice for an individual is a very bad when aggregated over entire society.

Anyway, in real world we won't get either perfect privacy nor perfect transparency. The question is, in which direction we should move from the status quo? It's a multidimensional problem; there are many components to privacy that could go either way. Personally, I'm in favour of everyone knowing more about everything, and reducing both means and incentives to lie to one another. "Everyone" includes the government too. I want to trust them. But they do have to earn it, and trust is in short supply nowadays.

[miguelrochefort]

First, let's get rid of the idea that a central government has the authority to create and enfore laws. That's pretty much a recipe for disaster.

A free market would pretty much eliminate the need for laws. What's wrong to you, might not be wrong to me. Therefore, you might refuse to help or trade with a person that does X, while I might have no problem with it and even help him.

Moreover, do you have any idea what a world with total privacy would look like? Even without total privacy, how do you even decide where to start (what to make public, what to keep private)? Surely, people will live in fear and keep everything they can private. How would that even work? No Google, no Facebook, no phone directory, all authors will use pseudonyms, etc. Basically, no meaningful connection will be made between people and the IoT will never possibly see the day. We'll all wear masks. Evolution will stop, we'll all die.

[TeMPOraL]

I agree with the points about privacy you make all over this discussion thread, and with the last paragraph of your comment here in particular. But I also strongly disagree with the boo-government/yay-free-market proposal.

> First, let's get rid of the idea that a central government has the authority to create and enfore laws. That's pretty much a recipe for disaster.

That's not a recipe for disaster. That's the universal solution for coordination problems we keep arriving at throughout the history. Creating and enforcing universal laws is the one thing government is actually really good at. The market on the other hand, totally sucks at it. It has its strengths though, and whatever the solution is, it will involve a mix of centralized and distributed responsibility.

I refer you to [0] for an in-depth discussion on coordination problems. It's a long read, but totally worth it.

[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

[miguelrochefort]

Because I agree with everything you've said here, I will take a close look at the content of this link.

I am the kind of person that believes in the existence of a universal absolute moral truth. I don't believe in subjectivity. A disagreement implies that at least one person is wrong. Yet, I don't think a central and rigid infrastructure should exist to enforce this ideal even if we were to discover it.

Can you provide one example of a law that should be enforced by a government?

And you're right about coordination, I don't have all the answers either. Scarce resources, ownership, roads, defense, languages. I'm still not sure how to deal with these in a free market.

[TeMPOraL]

> I am the kind of person that believes in the existence of a universal absolute moral truth. I don't believe in subjectivity. A disagreement implies that at least one person is wrong. Yet, I don't think a central and rigid infrastructure should exist to enforce this ideal even if we were to discover it.

I have a similar view of disagreement - it is my belief that two rational people should, having the same information, reach the same conclusion. I don't believe in an "universal absolute moral truth" (after all, where does it come from, and why?), but I think humans share enough of their basic morality to make it de-facto universal for us. We should delegate only the bare minimum of it for the law to enforce, but the government is literally an embodiment of the concept of people getting together and agreeing on things, so I see no problem to it being a way to scale up what in small groups you can do through social customs.

> Can you provide one example of a law that should be enforced by a government?

I think you enumerated some examples yourself - "scarce resources, ownership, roads, defense, languages". Those things are suitable for being managed centrally, and management involves enforcement - even if you delegated most of it to the market, you still need to steer the market to do the job, lest it bails out when it's profitable to do so.

[miguelrochefort]

I have just read your link.

I'm one of those people that don't believe humans to be special and would happily see them being replaced by what made them obsolete.

I don't believe in Friendly AI. Yudkowsky's thesis is flawed. We should be replaced.

[TeMPOraL]

You don't like humanity, do you? :). Is your disagreement with FAI just about that we don't deserve to survive?

Also, I referred you to Meditations on Moloch not because of FAI, but because of the discussion on coordination problems. What do you think about the article's view of that?

[asntbqjkwbaoeuc]

In a free market, there are winners and losers. The winners have a strong economic incentive to keep their communication private, as has been the case throughout human history. If you want to prevent this, you need some sort of system that has power over all citizens. But you argue against a central authority of any sort, so how does this work?

In addition, I'm assuming given your distrust for the government and love of markets that all means of communication will be private. Private capital tends to monopoly, so we can expect in your utopia that all means of communication are owned by a small group of people. This group of people has practical control over everyone's data.

This group of people might decide to release everyone's data in order to appease your desire for a post-privacy utopia, but almost certainly they'll keep it for their economic advantage.

The resulting system you are advocating is one in which a tiny percentage of people has near-universal control over the populace.

You can try to equalize things by creating an alternative system in which all data is public, say by having cameras that stream to some publicly accessible resource. But the streaming and the cameras will be the private property of organizations that have a strong incentive for you not to do this. And since the entire infrastructure is owned by such organizations, you would be in violation of your end user agreement to start such a project. It would make you a "liar" when you signed the Internet EULA, which, as you say in another comment, is the worst crime imaginable.

[nunyabuizness]

> there are winners and losers

Currently, we are the losers, our governments are the winners.

> The winners have a strong economic incentive to keep their communication private, as has been the case throughout human history.

That's exactly how our govt functions today.

> This group of people might decide to release everyone's data in order to appease your desire for a post-privacy utopia, but almost certainly they'll keep it for their economic advantage.

True, but we are still at the cusp of applications that pay users for using the application and for their info, which could also be made public, but as you said, might not happen.

> The resulting system you are advocating is one in which a tiny percentage of people has near-universal control over the populace.

That's what we have today. Please understand this, the future he is proposing is at worst as bad as what we have today and at best, so much better.

[nunyabuizness]

First, thanks for engaging my hypothetical.

Second, while what you said is true, it would also mean that we wouldn't have a perfect law-making govt then, wouldn't it :)?

And even if it was optional (b/c it wasn't necessary), I'd agree that we should still have it, but that's different than codifying it's necessity in law (by the grace of the very people who want to deny it to you) and different than treating privacy as a panacea for protection against unchecked power.