I kinda doubt the filthy rich will be affected
Or is it more likely that I give that away and nothing else really improves?
Yes, I think it's worse if North Korea gets a nuke than if the FBI gets a peek at my Amazon purchases pursuant to a judge's order.
North Korea has leveraged cryptocurrency to evade sanctions to the tune of billions of dollars. [1] This has a material negative impact on global security.
> We already know this whole "give up your privacy for safety!" thing is nonsense, because the privacy has gone way down over the past years and safety has not changed at all.
We are roughly at one of the safest, most peaceful points in history. [2] This is in no small part due to our careful and measured efforts to balance privacy and the public good. Generally you have a right to privacy unless someone can show a good reason why you should lose that right - at least at a state level. I think this is the right balance. I think most people do too.
> It's theater, a puppet show put up in order to rob you of your essential freedom for the gratification and enrichment of another.
Citation needed. And I don't mean that glibly, if you have some data I'll happily read it.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/02/09/north...
[2] https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-...
Add to that: don't only think about what the current government will use those powers for, think about what future governments will use them for. If you're not okay with those powers existing when the party you don't like is in power, you should also be advocating against those powers when your own preferred party is in power. (That is, of course, unless you're a fascist and counting on your preferred party to perform a full 1933 Weimar Germany-style takeover that abolishes democracy.)
Why? Shouldn't you then assume that all people will do the maximum amount of evil given the power they are granted. And what exactly makes government different then other places where power is concentrated? For example, crypto miners.
Not OP, but you definitely should!
> And what exactly makes government different then other places where power is concentrated? For example, crypto miners.
One of them can send people-with-guns to your home to arrest you and take away your stuff.
Note that I'm not some crypto-anarchist absolutist, but IMO being weary and critical of governments grabbing more power is the right reaction.
It’s never about you, until it is. You should assume the government will do the maximum amount of evil given the power they are granted.
This is the classic anti-privacy argument: this isn’t about you, you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide, etc.
Sure, there’s a pretty good chance that a random person, e.g. you, isn’t the target of these policies. However, when applied to an entire population, these sorts of policies result in privacy violations on a broad scale.