Then I much rather for everyone to have no privacy so it level the playing field.
I don't have to worry about having to hide stuff.
It's also not you who should be worrying about hiding stuff. That would be the job of everything you use; making sure that they don't get sued or worse for violating your privacy. In the world where privacy is a properly enforced human right, of course.
Information wants to be free.
Its simply more pragmatic approach to embrace and adapt to transparency.
> the powerful would still have ways to achieve it, while the less powerful wouldn't
The imbalance of power come from information asymmetry. e.g The government has more information then the citizen thus they are more powerful but if we strive for transparency for both side then the playing field is leveled.
Sure you can do that by privacy for both side but then you are fighting against the progress of technology.
Also, I don't think you can embrace transparency, no matter how much you'd like to, because of how humans work. How they work is of course not objectively described (yet), but the importance of privacy is recognized in places like the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which describes individual privacy not less than a basic human right. Or, looking at the opposite, constant exposure can lead to things like the Chilling Effect, which, in layman terms, means always-on self-censoring due to constantly being watched, and therefore exposed to consequences. Which would indicate of the failure of the people embracing transparency.
Embracing and learning on how to adapt on transparency is the only feasible way. Technology is always progressing. As technology progresses information becoming easier, cheaper, faster to transmit.
Good luck trying to stop the progress of technology.
Yes someone will always try to hide they can try but its going to be come more and more difficult and increasingly costly.
>Also, I don't think you can embrace transparency, no matter how much you'd like to, because of how humans work
what do you mean by this ? How human works in this context according to you ?
>but the importance of privacy is recognized in places like the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights,
Just because its written there doesn't mean its set in stone.
I certainly disagree that privacy is a rights.
>Or, looking at the opposite, constant exposure can lead to things like the Chilling Effect,
It can lead to that but then we should fix those thing instead of privacy
I'm not saying that transparency can solve everything. I'm saying that we learn/adapt on living with transparency.
>which, in layman terms, means always-on self-censoring due to constantly being watched,
When the root of the issue is fixed, the need of self-censoring is disappear.
But, what you can do is build on the collective experience of humanity. And that's what I was trying to do, when I picked the human rights declaration and the chilling effect, as two examples of the relationship of humans and their privacy.
You also write that some underlying issues need to be fixed. What issues do you mean by this? What is the root cause that you'd like to fix?
Disagree, if anything its the contrary, human as like any other living organism always evolve, always changing. Its language, its culture is constantly evolving/changing, even its physique.
>You also write that some underlying issues need to be fixed. What issues do you mean by this? What is the root cause that you'd like to fix?
Lets take one example, assume I'm gay. Let say If people know I'm gay I will be discriminated. There is 2 way to solve this issue: Hide that I'm gay or fix the discrimination issue. I would much prefer the later approach.
When the underlying issue is fixed, I would not need for self-censoring.
I think a better response is - what if they did have something to hide? What if they were a government or corporate whistleblower, a human rights lawyer, or a journalist? What if the government changes and suddenly their friendship with a Tibetan sympathizer becomes a liability?
What if they're none of those, but due to their carelessness, make whistleblowers stand out because they're the only ones trying to keep some privacy, making them easy to find an retaliate against?
Or, what if something harmless becomes illegal overnight and now it's too late to hide existing links to you?
The "nothing to hide" argument relies on the assumption that governments and laws remain stable. Which is obviously far from reality. We have an example of a country getting split in half literally within one night, and right now people are still getting executed for having the wrong religion or sexuality - or, like recently in Afghanistan, because they dared to work as translator for US troops.
So this is the actual issue then ?
Instead of resorting to hiding, should instead fix the root issue: change the law.
Suppose the people of Hong Kong followed your advice, and had allowed surveillance infrastructure to spread through their city, mapping out everyone's social graphs and political affiliations.
Now that a hostile government is in charge of their city, there is no reason to worry the govt. has inherited all the gathered information and knows exactly who to target - if they don't like it, they should fix the root issue and change the law.
The surveillance/transparency has to be on both side.
Government can't just do whatever they want if they also being surveilled.
No? Because it seems to me if you're the one with power, you have a lot less to fear from surveillance, than if you're without. Say there's only one political party allowed (officially or unofficially) - that means it is free to organize and act as a political party, while if you were to try and start your own, you'd be jailed.
So where does their power come from ?
Information advantage ? No, if both side has the same information
Strength in number? there are more citizen then the government people.
>Assuming many people even learn about your arrest -
Thats why I argue for citizen to surveil the government too to level the playing field.
Telling someone who says that to prove it by getting naked in a restaurant is a bizarre non sequitur.
> Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and cryptographer, expressed opposition, citing Cardinal Richelieu's statement "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged", referring to how a state government can find aspects in a person's life in order to prosecute or blackmail that individual.[11] Schneier also argued that the actual choice is between "liberty versus control" instead of "security versus privacy".[11]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
I don't think the "nothing to hide" argument is unassailable. There are good arguments against it. The "naked in a restaurant" or "why do you pull your shades" responses just happen to be very silly ones.
Crucially, Schneier's argument directly deflates one of the core assumptions of the "nothing to hide," position, whereas the "naked in a restaurant" response is a pithy but meaningless volley that misunderstands the argument it's replying to and so ultimately addresses a position nobody actually holds.
More generally, and at risk of verbosity, it's generally of little use to attack a policy position on the grounds that holding it renders the supporter a hypocrite. "If you support this policy, then logically you have to support this other policy! And since you don't support the other policy, you can't support the original one! Gotcha!"
No, one can support Policy A and not Policy B, even in the face of convincing arguments that one must support both in order to remain ideologically consistent. Ordinary people aren't all that interested in ideological perfection, so it's just simply not a fruitful line of attack.
It's worked a few times for me now (illustrating the point, not getting them naked).
Another one is "then why do you shut the curtains at night?" or "why do you lock your front door?" or "do you lock the bathroom door when you're at home with loved ones?"
But I feel those don't make as much of an impact and invite snarky responses more than the first one.