I don’t, in general make this same bargain, and I’m not more than happy to give my data, and thus sacrifice my privacy. However, I have had to reckon, and I think many of those who value privacy must too, with the fact that it isn’t inherently valued by everyone, that simply adequately communicating this in a way that’s better understood won’t translate to people suddenly realising what they’re giving up. We aren’t always simply one great analogy away from changing every person’s world view and likely many have come to their view from a place at least as well informed as those of us who jealously guard our privacy. I also have to reckon with the fact that to some extent, my own desire to protect my privacy is at least not fully explainable by logic and rationalism, especially in light of how difficult it is to protect and how easy it is to have unwittingly ceded it. You might call that defeatism, and to simply conclude “well I lost some privacy, so I might as well give it up completely” is accepting defeat, again not something I’m yet prepared to do, but it is also perhaps important to acknowledge and factor present realities in to one’s thinking. It might sound defeatist to point out an enemy’s big guns pointed toward you from all sides, but it’s insane to ignore them. That quote that you’ve produced, while antithetical to my thinking, really isn’t irrational or illogical, and only defeatist if you were onboard with fighting to begin with. If you do not value your privacy and you get something useful in exchange for its sacrifice then it would seem obvious to part with it gladly and it’s difficult to offer a rational reason why someone shouldn’t. My strongest motivation for protecting it is more idealistic than personal and has more to do with a kind of slippery slope argument and a concern for hypothetical power grabbing and eroding of our rights and autonomy. I like to think that’s reason enough, but at least right now, for almost everyone, none of those concerns represent clear nor present dangers and I can’t prove it definitely will become such in future though I certainly feel like it has accelerated trends firmly in the direction of my fears.
On the last point you talked about, “prove it definitely will become such a future”. You simply cannot prove that without going there. What we’re seeing is not a natural course of actions, so we cannot simply derive the consequences like we would be able in science. Even in science, often times, the best we can do is probabilistic. The best we can do is show that such a future is possible, and that given the evidences, we may be able to conclude that the chances of realizing such a future is so and so, with caveats to known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
I’ll admit that chalking it up to defeatism is a stretch, but it’s not too far in my opinion. It’s the admission that the “machines” (though it’s really just big tech companies with a vested interest in as much data as possible so that they can sell it one way or another for profit) have already won and there’s not only no point in struggling against it, you get something out of it. I don’t necessarily agree with the gun analogy as I find it difficult to distinguish that from a threat of your life, but I see where you’re coming from: the easy path towards what most people current perceive as a modern life of tech is built in a way that pushes people into line as products, by enticing them with a “service” and taking advantage of their FOMO, and all other ways are either too much work or too technical for the common person.
When these services that people have come to rely on gets enshittified, these people would then just shrug and say “well what can you do,” maybe send some angry message somewhere into the aether and continue with the service, continuing to be a milk cow.
For myself, I see privacy as a tool towards encouraging a healthier variety in the ecosystem. It is a way to attain at least some healthy level of anonymity, as you would walking down streets in different parts of the world, so that I do not have to constantly maintain a single, outward personality everywhere I go. Supporting privacy is my way of saying I don’t like how many big tech business works, by essentially exploiting human nature and stepping all over it. That IS ideological; I simply believe that we can do good business without resorting to dirty tactics and opportunism; that humans should not be milk cows to business or capitalism.
That said, I have some vested interest in having more options: my interest and hobbies are niche and none of these services can or will sufficiently provide for what I seek. By the milk cow analogy, I do not sufficiently benefit from the blanket offers of these businesses. I also do not like the consequences of which they bring to humans and their relationships, and not fixing those consequences is out of a conflict of interest where they are motivated to exploit human nature and relationships to profiteer off us all, as is the many examples that we’re all starting to see and realize from capitalism.
I don’t, in general make this same bargain, and I’m not more than happy to give my data, and thus sacrifice my privacy. However, I have had to reckon, and I think many of those who value privacy must too, with the fact that it isn’t inherently valued by everyone, that simply adequately communicating this in a way that’s better understood won’t translate to people suddenly realising what they’re giving up. We aren’t always simply one great analogy away from changing every person’s world view and likely many have come to their view from a place at least as well informed as those of us who jealously guard our privacy. I also have to reckon with the fact that to some extent, my own desire to protect my privacy is at least not fully explainable by logic and rationalism, especially in light of how difficult it is to protect and how easy it is to have unwittingly ceded it. You might call that defeatism, and to simply conclude “well I lost some privacy, so I might as well give it up completely” is accepting defeat, again not something I’m yet prepared to do, but it is also perhaps important to acknowledge and factor present realities in to one’s thinking. It might sound defeatist to point out an enemy’s big guns pointed toward you from all sides, but it’s insane to ignore them. That quote that you’ve produced, while antithetical to my thinking, really isn’t irrational or illogical, and only defeatist if you were onboard with fighting to begin with. If you do not value your privacy and you get something useful in exchange for its sacrifice then it would seem obvious to part with it gladly and it’s difficult to offer a rational reason why someone shouldn’t. My strongest motivation for protecting it is more idealistic than personal and has more to do with a kind of slippery slope argument and a concern for hypothetical power grabbing and eroding of our rights and autonomy. I like to think that’s reason enough, but at least right now, for almost everyone, none of those concerns represent clear nor present dangers and I can’t prove it definitely will become such in future though I certainly feel like it has accelerated trends firmly in the direction of my fears.
On the last point you talked about, “prove it definitely will become such a future”. You simply cannot prove that without going there. What we’re seeing is not a natural course of actions, so we cannot simply derive the consequences like we would be able in science. Even in science, often times, the best we can do is probabilistic. The best we can do is show that such a future is possible, and that given the evidences, we may be able to conclude that the chances of realizing such a future is so and so, with caveats to known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
I’ll admit that chalking it up to defeatism is a stretch, but it’s not too far in my opinion. It’s the admission that the “machines” (though it’s really just big tech companies with a vested interest in as much data as possible so that they can sell it one way or another for profit) have already won and there’s not only no point in struggling against it, you get something out of it. I don’t necessarily agree with the gun analogy as I find it difficult to distinguish that from a threat of your life, but I see where you’re coming from: the easy path towards what most people current perceive as a modern life of tech is built in a way that pushes people into line as products, by enticing them with a “service” and taking advantage of their FOMO, and all other ways are either too much work or too technical for the common person.
When these services that people have come to rely on gets enshittified, these people would then just shrug and say “well what can you do,” maybe send some angry message somewhere into the aether and continue with the service, continuing to be a milk cow.
For myself, I see privacy as a tool towards encouraging a healthier variety in the ecosystem. It is a way to attain at least some healthy level of anonymity, as you would walking down streets in different parts of the world, so that I do not have to constantly maintain a single, outward personality everywhere I go. Supporting privacy is my way of saying I don’t like how many big tech business works, by essentially exploiting human nature and stepping all over it. That IS ideological; I simply believe that we can do good business without resorting to dirty tactics and opportunism; that humans should not be milk cows to business or capitalism.
That said, I have some vested interest in having more options: my interest and hobbies are niche and none of these services can or will sufficiently provide for what I seek. By the milk cow analogy, I do not sufficiently benefit from the blanket offers of these businesses. I also do not like the consequences of which they bring to humans and their relationships, and not fixing those consequences is out of a conflict of interest where they are motivated to exploit human nature and relationships to profiteer off us all, as is the many examples that we’re all starting to see and realize from capitalism.