This and other automated tracking/recording/etc methods will basically make privacy a thing of the past. It should be illegal, because without privacy, there can't be democracy (see the Facebook scandals as an example).

Isn't privacy/anonymity in a crowd just a thing of the present? In a small village, everyone knew who you were and knew your past.

Even assuming everybody in that village knows everybody else to the degree that Facebook knows you, it is at least mutual; ol' Grandma Francine knows I'm foolin' around but I know what Grandma Francine got up to when she was my age and who her daughter's real dad is, too. What private things do you know about the people serving ads to you? Nothing. Yesterday I saw someone on HN discussing their download of info from Facebook, which is supposed to include what advertisers know what, and they found they couldn't even find the advertiser's company name in Google.

And ol' Grandma Francine doesn't scale. Her bad behaviors can't bend the very social fabric of society, nor is she corrupting the public square by abusing her knowledge of the townspeople to sell them things and "nudge" them and manipulate them; Grandma Francine is very talkative but not necessarily that bright, certainly not "we hired every PhD who we could get our hands on and turned them loose with an open expense line to buy hardware with" sorts of smart and manipulative.

So instead of privacy, I think we should push/work on transparency/openness on all side as much as possible. Facebook know everything about me, I want to know everything about facebook too.

Believe it or not, the world is evolving to become smaller and like a small town gradually. Sad... no more curiousity about my neighbor towns

Is it time to start advocating against social media?

You could move to a new village. For bonus points you call yourself a traveling preacher for instant credibility, or claim to be some famous person

Not really. Many peasants in Europe for example were bound to the land.

In addition, moving was even more devastating then than it can be now. Mutual aid and social networks were everything, outsiders not trusted.

> without privacy, there can't be democracy

You would have to suspect that the Chinese government aren’t missing this aspect.

maybe not, but those technologies are spreading everywhere... including license plate readers at every corners... which is why Steve Jobs didn't have one on his car... But he could have been tracked some other ways... with the wireless sensors in his tires for example (and most cars communicate wirelessly with the manufacturer)

No license plates? How did he get away with this? Sounds interesting, got a source for further reading?

The first search result from "steve jobs no license plate". https://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/07/steve-jobs-loophole-clo...

> It should be illegal, because without privacy, there can't be democracy (see the Facebook scandals as an example).

Wouldn't surprise me if China essentially made privacy illegal some time in the future.

Anything you say is going to sound dumb with that username