(Please don’t downvote just because I need some help.)
I was once a privacy nut. But it’s getting so hard nowadays, and there are so many more important problems – global warming, AI, the inevitable collapse of the current world order… how does privacy improve the world? Please help remind me.
I do approve of privacy, of course. All this protect-the-children flak is bullshit. I just can’t remember why I thought it was something worth fighting for and preaching about.
Privacy means personal agency and freedom from people, whether individuals, companies, or the government, controlling you with direct or implied threats, or more subtle manipulation, which they can do because they have your dox and because information is power.
A lack of privacy adds fuel to the polycrisis because if we can’t act in relative secrecy that basically means we can’t act freely at all, and nothing can challenge whoever runs the panopticon.