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You are going to be in for a real shock if you ever see a phone book. Pages upon pages of names matched with phone numbers!


And you're going to be in for a shock if you ever decide to do some research and find out that you can request your name and number to not be listed in a phone book.


But a phone book doesn't show connections between people nor have people's unlisted numbers, like somebody's phone contacts might.


And Facebook isn't showing unlisted numbers to the public.


It's a relatively new idea, the modern expectation of 'privacy', and one that's completely out of touch with reality. It's only within the past hundred years that most people did not know everyone in their town - Even in cities, you probably shopped at a small set of stores and were known by name by the clerks. Technology has caught up, and now it's possible for shopkeeps to know your name again.


I'm still known by the clerks of the stores in my neighborhood. That's completely orthogonal to this.

The reason this type of discussion of privacy wasn't being had 30 years ago is because 99.9% of the things we did 30 years ago were private, outside of getting arrested as an adult and, eventually, drivers' license info. If I didn't want to be recognized while buying birth control or hemorrhoid medication, I would just have to go to a store that I didn't usually go to.

Also, of course, 1890: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Privacy_%28articl...


Technology has caught up, and now it's possible for shopkeeps to know your name again.

And people you don't even know from nowhere near where you live, and who definitely don't have your best interests at heart (remind me, why exactly is this data being collected?). Even with the "local" knowledge you espouse, I say privacy is necessary. Until society can put aside it's childish prejudices (say, against non-heteronormative sexuality), then privacy will be necessary. As many noted thinkers have seen fit to enshrine (eg, the US constitution).


This is somewhat different though, rather than having various small communities where everyone knows each others you have a handful of large companies who know everyone.

Google probably knows more about me than my local shopkeeper for example.


Invasion of privacy is what's new, not privacy itself.


"Recording the relationship" is the privacy invasion.




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