[fuckyouriotshit]

> I never heard any convincing argument about why privacy has value.

You have either _never_ had to keep a secret (which I highly doubt, unless you happen to be a literal child) or you simply aren't arguing in good faith.

Assuming that you are arguing in good faith, let's consider a potential reason why someone might value their privacy:

Some people are born attracted to the same-sex (gay, lesbian, bi, pan, etc.).

There are some countries where being gay is a criminal offense; there are even some countries where you can face the death penalty for this. [1]

If a gay person lives in one of those countries, don't they have a right to keep this fact about themselves private simply in order to protect themselves? Or does their life have less value than the profit that can be generated by the "Data Economy"?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_for_homosex...

[matz1]

>There are some countries where being gay is a criminal offense;

So that is the actual problem, not the privacy.

[fuckyouriotshit]

Without some expectation of privacy it would have been impossible for people to gather together with others who had been similarly criminalized.

Without those gatherings, organizing against anti-gay propaganda (equating it to pedophilia, claiming it would be the downfall of civilization, etc.) would have been impossible and it's unlikely that the laws criminalizing homosexuality would have ever been changed.

If you kill privacy then you'll also kill the ability of marginalized groups to organize against any future oppression.

I doubt you actually believe that privacy doesn't matter however, because you're posting here under a pseudonym and haven't linked any social media accounts or anything which could reveal "private" details like your full legal name, place of residence/work, etc.

[matz1]

>Without some expectation of privacy it would have been impossible for people to gather together with others who had been similarly criminalized..

Impossible is a really strong word. I'm not saying that its going to be easy but I doubt that its impossible. That's my point lets spend the effort to figure out/solve this problem instead of trying to hide information.

>I doubt you actually believe that privacy doesn't matter however, because you're posting here under a pseudonym and haven't linked any social media accounts or anything which could reveal "private" details like your full legal name, place of residence/work, etc.

I would love to have everything for everyone to be public so that I don't have to worry about hiding those information. The problem is right now I can't. That's why I'm advocating we spent the effort on solving the problem that arise when the information is public rather than trying to hide information.

Likewise, if I'm gay I would much much prefer to have gay to be decriminalized rather than hiding my sexual orientation.

[fuckyouriotshit]

> I'm not saying that its going to be easy but I doubt that its impossible.

So you're willing to concede that people being unable to make the choice to keep something about themselves private will make it harder for them to promote their own rights? Can you understand how a lack of the ability to have private conversations, relationships, etc. could cause serious problems for some people?

Because earlier in the thread you said: "I never heard any convincing argument about why privacy has value." but now you are seem to be implying that privacy actually does have value to some people, correct?

> That's why I'm advocating we spent the effort on solving the problem that arise when the information is public rather than trying to hide information.

That would be a reasonable statement if you weren't also earlier criticizing the concept of privacy and stating that it had no value. You can choose to reject the idea that people should have individual privacy and try to push for a world where people didn't feel that they had to keep secrets, but you'd need to fix all the systemic issues before you could ethically promote the sort of radical transparency that you're talking about.

Trying to claim that privacy doesn't matter because it'd "be better if everything was public" without first addressing these other issues is terribly callous and could only seek to increase the amount of trauma in the world.

[matz1]

>Can you understand how a lack of the ability to have private conversations, relationships, etc. could cause serious problems for some people?

Yes it could cause serious problem but not the privacy itself that the problem, its other people using it to harm other people is the problem.

My conversation being public by itself is not a problem, the problem is when people use it to harm me.

>but now you are seem to be implying that privacy actually does have value to some people, correct?

In any case its not the privacy itself that has value.

[fuckyouriotshit]

> Yes it could cause serious problem but not the privacy itself that the problem, its other people using it to harm other people is the problem.

So is it OK to advocate for the destruction of people's privacy in this situation or not?

If it is, then you're admitting that you just don't care about the harm that could occur (and trying to minimize the responsibility you'd have by hand-waving the issue as being "other people")

If it is not OK to destroy people's privacy in this situation, then your entire argument about how the coerced loss of privacy isn't a problem is contradictory.

[TchoBeer]

Obviously the problem is laws that outlaw homosexuality and not a lack of privacy.

[path2power]

To the people whose lives are at stake, what difference does it make?

[TchoBeer]

None, but if we're looking at this situation (where the government is finding secret homosexuals and prosecuting them) and asking "what policies ought we enact to fix this" if your answer is "better privacy" that seems like it's looking at the wrong problem.

[shkkmo]

You are assuming that perfect and fair governance is a reasonably achievable state. Reality begs to differ. In reality, there are people in the USA who are in the closet or of fear of persecution by their communities.

Privacy provides a fundemental protection from persecution by your government. This is precisely why the constitution includes specific privacy protections.

So while we should fight governments that persecute homosexuality, we also need to protect at least some aspects of privacy to keep protections for the next persecuted group.

[fuckyouriotshit]

And what if it's a domestic company that is destroying those people's privacy and a foreign government that is using this to prosecute them?

Should we avoid preventing further damage that the domestic company is doing? Or should we limit ourselves to dealing with the issue diplomatically, and not do anything else for fear of "looking at the wrong problem"?

I don't understand why you'd seriously suggest that reducing the likelihood of known harm (by ensuring some level of privacy) is the wrong thing to think about when it doesn't prevent other actions from being taken too. It's possible for groups of people to do different things at the same time, after all.

Ultimately, your argument will never result in a situation where privacy is taken seriously because you could substitute in any issue and your conclusion could just as easily be that "better privacy is looking at the wrong problem."