[mptest]

>"anything [harmful] could be illegal!" isn't backed by anything real or lasting Are you serious? that's a pretty ahistoric view... Being jewish was illegal, being a free black person was illegal, shit, woman having freedom of medical procedure is illegal in some states today!

how on earth can you earnestly suggest things won't be made illegal that will harm people

[Zetice]

Every time in modern history western society has started down the path of outlawing some form of existence, we self correct.

[danShumway]

> we self correct

And that usually happens quickly and with zero casualties? I'm sure that Alan Touring would be thrilled to learn that years later his nation has stopped castrating gay people.

Progress also isn't linear, backlash over transgender identity has gotten worse recently. People are being prosecuted over abortions that would have been legal a year ago. None of the people who are in those positions are going to be comforted by knowing that eventually someday other people won't be attacked for the same reasons.

Self correction protects the future; privacy protects the present. They're not interchangeable.

[Zetice]

Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero? We don’t apply that kind of logic to any other aspect of risk management, why would that be the bar here?

And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present. Their whole argument is, “what if stuff you like is made illegal in the future?!?!” with absolutely no tether to realit

[danShumway]

> Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero?

Fair enough. What is the acceptable number of casualties then? Do you have a number of people in mind that you think would need to be killed or harmed before you would agree that privacy is worthwhile?

> And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present.

This is a pretty big misunderstanding of what we're saying. Privacy protects against future threats, yes. At the point when you are experiencing those threats, they will be in the present. And at that point, privacy will protect you. Whether you want to call that the future or the present, whatever. I don't care, it doesn't matter.

In contrast, self correction does not protect you. Self correction is about the overall direction of society -- at the point where you are threatened, whether that's a threat in the present or in the future, the tendency of society to eventually stop doing awful things is of no protection at all to you.

Privacy is not a substitute for social change, but social change is also not a substitute for privacy. Social change is the thing that happens after people die. If you want to protect the people who are actually dying (see above, maybe you don't think that's worthwhile) then you need privacy.

> with absolutely no tether to reality

Just as a quick sidenote, there are people being charged for previously legal abortions right now. Maybe you don't think those people are worth protecting in the short term and we should accept the downsides and rely on eventually society changing and say "oh well."

But that's very different than saying that the risk isn't real. The only way that you could say that "what if a thing you like is made illegal" doesn't have a basis in reality is if you really aren't paying attention to reality in the US right now. None of this is theoretical, people are very literally getting prosecuted for abortions right now because Facebook doesn't E2EE its messages.

[Zetice]

How many people do you think is an acceptable level of loss for cars to be justified?

How many people need to die because their medical information wasn't available quickly enough to deliver life saving treatment in time?

Pedophiles are walking free right now because the criminal justice system can't gain access to their computers to prove what it otherwise painfully obvious; they're hurting children.

I can make exactly the same arguments you're making here, just in the opposite direction. That doesn't mean I'm right or you are; the argument that anyone being harmed means an idea is not worth doing is pointless and doesn’t provide anything remotely resembling a reasonable view into the issue, but pretending like any loss at all is unacceptable, such as you're doing here, is a farce.

[danShumway]

> but pretending like any loss at all is unacceptable, such as you're doing here, is a farce.

There's a weird transformation that this conversation has gone through. As a reminder it started out with you saying "besides, doomsaying that 'anything could be illegal!' isn’t backed by anything real or lasting."

Which is just false. And I'm not sure where I or frankly anyone else in this thread has suggested that even just a single person being hurt means that privacy is an existential problem. Quite the opposite, I accepted the premise that there's a threshold, asked you what your opinion of that threshold was, and responded to you saying:

> Every time in modern history western society has started down the path of outlawing some form of existence, we self correct.

and

> Their whole argument is, “what if stuff you like is made illegal in the future?!?!” with absolutely no tether to realit[y]

by pretty objectively correctly pointing out that this doesn't change anything for anyone caught out in the current situation and that, yeah, things being made illegal in the future is a completely realistic concern with countless historical examples backing it up.

Of course we balance concerns about safety. I still use a phone and participate in society, I'm using my real name online right now. Ironically, I'm being less pseudonymous than you are right now. Very clearly I am not saying that a single person dying means we all need to go live in the woods.

But "what is an acceptable level of sacrifice for convenience" really doesn't have anything to do with the argument "I have nothing to hide." If someone dismisses concerns about car safety or medical accessibility or criminal activity by saying that those dangers aren't real, then they'd be very much in the wrong. And it's equally wrong to dismiss privacy concerns by saying that concerns about future erosion of rights "aren't tethered to reality." They are a thing that happens. They're real, just as real as car accidents. So no you don't have to stop driving, but you should wear a seatbelt, look both ways before you cross the street, and use an encrypted messenger on your phone.

[BlargMcLarg]

Cool. Real question, and truly think about it deep and hard: are you okay with being the martyr who ends up jailed, prosecuted, dead or what-have-you before we self correct?

These statements are very easy to make, but when push comes to shove the individuals saying it won't put their money where their mouth is. So, will you?

[Zetice]

Yes, as are you, in the same way we’re willing to drive a car and therefore risk death.

[NovaDudely]

Someone once said to me, it is easy to be enlightened when you have a full belly.

In the same vein, it is easy to grant social gains when in easy times. But we are in the liminal space between the boom of the 20th century and the blow back from same century of reckless growth.

Nowadays a lot of nationalistic rhetoric that would not have flown far has had a lot of traction over the last decade or so. And it is slowly becoming obvious that the frameworks for oppression are being constructed.

The idea that we can only go forwards with minor trips along the way is a very narrow interpretation of history. That the example given before was of the Nazis is especially accurate considering it came after the Weinmar Republic that was known to be particularly ahead of the times in terms of social progress and cultural facets. It could be argued that wouldn't be for almost another 70-80 years that they gained back what was taken away in next to now time.

Unfortunately, the one thing I have taken away from those that work as war correspondents - do not under estimate how fragile society is and how quickly people will turn against others to try and ensure personal safety.

"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.” ― Albert Camus"