[TekMol]

As an individual, I want privacy of course.

But is privacy really important to mankind?

If we look at mankind as an organism, the organism can function better if each part knows what the other part is doing. If the left hand knows what the right hand does.

Isn't it the same with mankind? Maybe a society is more efficient without privacy. And more efficiency of the society would benefit its members.

[akomtu]

Privacy matters when it's privacy from predators, and their number is only growing. You don't want a group of opportunistic burglars to know when you aren't home and what you keep inside. Similarly you want to keep bigger predators blind: adtech, three letter agencies and so on. The utopia you're describing will come true when there are no more predators, and mankind is far from that stage.

[digging]

Privacy is important because of the power dynamic in society. If information were truly free and open, and we all had the same access to all private information and aggregation/analysis, maybe that kind of world would be best. But we don't, so privacy is a form of self-defense. Data gatherers are data hoarders and data abusers.

[throwbadubadu]

Our laws are imperfect, democracy is likely the best system but imperfect.. unless we'd have a way for Utopia where everything is perfect, fair and agreed upon, and there are never a bad actors (but then you also need to get rid of different opinions, and what that means..), then maybe full transparency (including no company secrets, no government secrets) could be a thing - but tbh this is impossible, at least for me, as infinite as the Universe is.

Taken to the extreme, wouldn't that also mean no privacy for your thoughts, brain, mind, but everything should be transparent? Welcome to the Borg, hell of an efficient society.. but not what makes life worthy... so imo no, privacy, free thought, freedom, and likely more just go together, as philosophers long established.

It is one of most foundational human rights!

[chmod600]

That assumes that information is always good and that all actors are working towards a common goal. Neither of those is true.