There will be privacy until the singularity, don't worry.
Continued encroachments on privacy and personal autonomy may indeed deteriorate them, even cripple our ability to protect those rights, but simply worrying about that doesn't mean I must go gentle into that good night.
No, that's not what I'm saying. I care about privacy for other peoples' sake and partly for my own. But my own personal future is a non-issue. The future of the world is not.
We won't be able to prevent it only if we accept it. The erosion of privacy is self-imposed, so if it brings damage and people consider it important, it will stop.
You're absolutely right. However, that doesn't mean that taking any opportunity to push back towards more privacy is in any way misplaced effort. I don't expect it will magically bring us to an utopian world where privacy is assured, but it's the only way to slow the progress towards less and less privacy.
> privacy is going to die sooner or later. The politicians need only win once.
If privacy dies, it ends creativity, civil society and funding for politicians. That scenario would be painful, but self-correcting. On the other side, something new can be born.
Note: "privacy" is not a car that can be stolen once. Like freedom, it is infinitely divisible, and even those who have lost 99% will keep fighting for what little remains. There are countless examples in history, independent of temporal technology minutiae.
Thanks for this post. This is exactly the issue. No dystopian future is needed to prove the value of privacy, one only has to look back at history to see that.
But it will never truly be post-privacy. As always, the rich and powerful will carefully guard their privacy all while saying to the rest of the world that you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.
So basically, because pretty much every useful data-and-automation-based thing - especially on the social, not individual level - can be considered an erosion of privacy, should we just stop progress? That's the sentiment I feel radiating from yours and others' complaints about privacy here.
> For years, privacy advocates, who foresaw the contours of the surveilled world we now live in, warned that privacy was a necessary prerequisite for democracy, human rights and a flourishing of the human spirit. We’re about to find out what happens when that privacy has all but vanished.
Hopefully there will be enough popular backlash in the near future, without too much institutional breakdown, that elected government officials will have no choice but to figure out how to fight for and protect everyone's right to privacy in personal spaces.
I think seeing this as an inevitable, when humans still have some choices in regards to the technology they buy and keep in their homes, is a lazy extrapolation.
More importantly, it's very important to keep in mind the massive benefits of privacy, be it psychological, philosophical and practical. This is both because of our hard-wiring and the natural importance of information. It's inherently interwoven into our lives, we don't even know how we'd act if we couldn't have any privacy. It could be debilitating for our intellectual development.
Surely this is a thing worth thinking about, and possibly fighting for? Otherwise, someone could simply extrapolate from our use of earlier weapons that we will probably have nuclear war, so all activism about anything is moot. This sort of careless extrapolation is beside the point EVEN if it's true.
Famous last words: "There are more important things to worry about than privacy".
If you've read history (and maybe you have, or not) privacy is a human right. When privacy goes away, then everything else goes away. Ask anyone over 60 in Germany or Romania (that was not WITH the army or the Police/Security services) and they will tell you how nice life is without privacy.
But hey, sure, 1) privacy doesn't matter, 2) you got nothing to hide, etc etc.
One thing all of this brings to mind is that we appear to be nearing a crossroads (perhaps we've already passed it).
That is, we'll have to very soon decide en masse whether we are OK with the demise of privacy or not. This is irrespective of whether our privacy is lost to companies, government, or both.
Because it seems that by default, people are simply becoming accustomed to a world without personal privacy. In fact, stories such as that referenced on this thread are coming out with such frequency and ferocity now that one wonders whether it has the effect of simply jading people with sheer volume (whether designed for this intent or not).
In any event, we've been moving in this direction for some time. And, after some point those who still care about privacy won't be able to summon the support needed to effect a return to its protection.
Privacy must belong to no one, or everyone, but no where in between; i.e. privacy must not be owned by a certain class or group.
If I can read anyone's messages, I'm absolutely fine with everyone else reading mine.
If governments want access to our data, they should open up their data for us to see as well.
Honestly I'd love to live in a world where everything is out in the open, no secrets, no agendas, nothing to hide, no passwords. Everyone knows everyone's intentions, perhaps even thoughts one day via Neurolink.
I think after the initial chaos in the first couple of decades, humanity will leap forward beyond imagination.
The notion that privacy isn't a big deal, simply because you're unlikely to be the target of some massive covert campaign, is pretty ridiculous. That's how rights end. Give an inch, lose a mile. And lose the mile when it matters most.
And who knows, maybe you would become a political figure or something of that caliber down the road. You just never know. Don't assume you don't need as much privacy as possible.
I agree with you and think the longer it takes for people to realise it, the harder it'll become. Sometimes stuff gets grandfathered in and someday it may become a criminal offence to build privacy protecting tools.
But I don't think that'll be enough. We should focus on the 3rd fight, which is equal access to information. If loss of privacy is bad, a one-sided situation is worse. My professional feeling is pervasive surveillance will outpace privacy tech and policy wise.
So the best available option long term (100+ years) is to make everything completely open. Don't allow only those in power to have privacy because it will solidify their position.
Continued encroachments on privacy and personal autonomy may indeed deteriorate them, even cripple our ability to protect those rights, but simply worrying about that doesn't mean I must go gentle into that good night.
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