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by TeMPOraL 3828 days ago
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.