[gub09]

This is probably an unusual opinion, but for me privacy is similar to freedom. Freedom is usually defined as a negative: people are free of oppression, have freedom of speech (freedom from speech being constrained), freedom of movement (not forced to stay in one place), religious freedom (freedom to believe what one will and not be limited in practice or assembly), etc.

Privacy is the freedom from being watched, from having one's movements and actions and consumption and words observed, tabulated and stored. I hope that one day whether by laws or technological solutions, privacy will again be the norm in our lives.

[adjkant]

I think it's important to note the definition of privacy you use is important.

For me, in my daily life, all of this is completely "private". Google having my data in mass and an identity profile on me that no human will ever specifically look at is just as good as private to me. The fact that computers will be handing this data, not other humans, is an important distinction for me. No human will ever see my individual data in all likelihood.

I don't think the lack of privacy is a problem, but rather the centralized power. It's really tough right now with so much power in information, but the only real information power coming in volume.

[pdkl95]

> the definition of privacy you use is important

Yes, it is. Defining privacy to mean the very opposite of "private" is pure doublethink/newspeak.

> Google having my data

You're not giving your data only to google. You're also giving it to anybody that hacks Google's servers to take their data at any point in the future (and anybody that buys it from the hackers), and any government (or other entity with sufficient power or influence) that orders (legally or illegally) Google to turn over their data, and anybody that Google might sell the data to should they have unfortunate financial troubles. This list will probably grow as the value of data grows and creative new ways to exploit data are discovered.

I commend Google for taking security seriously. You data is probably saver with them than than many business. However, they are still human so they make mistakes. Hacks will happen even with the very best well-funded security teams using impossibly good practices. When governments are involved, it may not even be Google's choice.

You need to remember that data doesn't go away, so the risk of who it may spread to only increases with time.

> other humans

Humans don't need to see your data for it to harm you. Your insurance company doesn't need a human to feed data from Google (or whomever) (possibly blinded through some sort of "rating service"?) through the machine learning and/or "risk assessment" heuristic du jour to raise your rates or deny coverage.

> centralized power

Pretending the world is just[1] - that your data will somehow be limited to only Google - gives Google a lot of power, that will be hard to reclaim. If by some miracle they are able to do better than most people throughout history that acquire power and only use their power for benevolent reasons, the same cannot be said indefinitely into the future.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

[dorian-graph]

> Google having my data in mass and an identity profile on me that no human will ever specifically look at is just as good as private to me.

This feels like saying "I have nothing to hide".

[noonespecial]

>No human will ever see my individual data in all likelihood.

What matters to me is not the likelihood, but the possibility. Can someone who wants to at a later date, "pull my file" and see it all.

If its true then what we have is a classic example of the panopticon. They can't watch everybody all the time, but they can watch anybody whenever they want, even retroactively. That's bad news.

[tskaiser]

It is private, but it is not securely private, meaning it is a castle made of glass.

[jankedeen]

How incredibly naive.

[qrbLPHiKpiux]

Metadata is surveillance

[XJOKOLAT]

"in all likelihood" ... the key bit.

The US, for example, is one presidency away from complete democratic failure. By which I mean all that data, which now is effectively, "in all likelihood", private via volume, can and will be abused.

Giving up and allowing privacy to fail now only makes disastrous consequences more likely later at the whim of that centralised power you mention.

[speedplane]

Privacy and freedom are very intricately related, but rather than saying privacy is a "type" of freedom, I would say that privacy is a requirement for freedom. Perhaps our most basic freedom (more than travel or speech), is the freedom to think. This is possible solely because our thoughts are private.

[AdamN]

When you say 'freedom', you mean 'liberty'. Read up on the words and the Federalist Papers - you'll enjoy it.

[bingojess]

Isaiah Berlin on Negative Freedom too

[pjc50]

Remember that Roosevelt's famous "four freedoms" included two "freedom of" and two "freedom from".

The "freedom from" elements have been de-emphasised lately as they're extremely unpopular with the right-wing:

"The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world."

[Shivetya]

seems to me the only recent threats to freedom of speech have all been from the "liberal" side expressed quite well in colleges with heckler vetoes and codified in law with nebulous hate speech definitions. with regards to worship, same thing, you can have your beliefs but you have to bow to our laws which supercede.

we have lost freedom from fear because both politicians and terrorist profit by exploiting it.