(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.
At a very basic level I’ll boil it down to this:
90% of all the companies you have or will deal with (especially your employers), your (and enemy) governments, the police, and even society (you can get away with a lot of BS in a fancy suit unless people discover you’re broke AF for example) all find your personal information extremely valuable. So much so that there are obvious dollar signs attached to this meaning. Do you in general really want to give this away for free or very underpriced?
That is just the universal concern over personal privacy. Now, consider the situation of anyone that wants or needs to keep things private for any reason (legitimate or otherwise). Reveal anything of this sort and their life could be in danger (ie: being gay or trans in some Radical Islamic country, pro-Ukraine in russia, etc…). In a world where data collecting is so pervasive and invasive that companies know your daughter is pregnant before you do, and the information obtained is available to ANYONE able to pay, this is terrifying.
Exactly because it is so pervasive and invasive is why I get your frustration. This really needs to be a much greater political issue but this is discouraged because the government wants your data too.