(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.
it's getting so hard nowadays
It's definitely not easy, but sometimes we just do the best we can, even if it's not the most that could be done.
Everyone has their own unique threat model. A random everyday person will have less need for personal privacy than, say, a government employee that works for an intelligence agency. Do what you can to protect what matters most to you, but don't stress if you can't upend your entire life to improve your privacy.
there are so many more important problems
You can support multiple solutions to world issues at the same time, without needing to make any individual one the most important one, or completely throwing out your other beliefs.
Privacy protects you from anything ranging from annoying ads, to targeted election misinformation, is key to dismantling the surveillance state that is regularly used to silence opposition to current political powers, and protects your right to free speech in a world where every government wishes they could control you just a bit more.
Privacy protects you from self-censorship. It keeps you safe from people who might want to harm you or your family for your views. It lets you protest oppressive policy.
Companies make money off your data. And what are these companies contributing to? Global warming through ever-expanding datacenters running AI models you didn't ask for. Political campaigns that endorse monopolies. The exploitation of third-world countries.
By taking away their ability to sell you for profit, you indirectly reduce numerous other harms.
I just can't remember why I thought it was something worth fighting for
The world is crazy. It's not weird to let things like privacy fall to the wayside when seemingly larger problems pop up, but privacy doesn't exist in a vacuum. Everything is interconnected, and privacy directly impacts these other issues.
It's okay to just do what you can. the world isn't perfect, and neither are we.
Privacy directly helps dismantle systems of power, surveillance, advertising, and manipulation. So if that's worth it to you, then keep fighting.
Privacy doesn't need any justification to why it's important any more than why someone molesting you on the street doesn't need a detailed explanation as to why it's bad. Corporations and states are dirty abusers that want to know about and sell every part of your private life, and that should make you uncomfortable. Having to justify why you deserve privacy in the face of this form of abuse is simply victim blaming.
i appreciate this philosophically, but it's not really the pragmatic answer I was looking for.
You don't have to be 100% dedicated to privacy.
I implement measures to protect my privacy when I can, but sometimes I forego it for convenience or access to something I need.
For example, I refused to give OpenAI my phone number to use ChatGPT. But I have a WhatsApp account. Better Meta having my phone number than both Meta and OpenAI.
As for the USA, let me put it this way: If Trump gets elected, with the tech tools the govt has, we will see, at the very best, another Hong Kong, with anyone that disfavors the Repubs disappearing, some permanently. At the worst, we will see another Nazi Germany. He himself proposed executing people.
If you practice privacy and can teach others, your skills will be valuable to the underground resistance.
The sad thing is, given physical isolation these days, we'll all be executed alone.
It sounds like you have isolated yourself. That is a choice you made, that you can change in the future.
Also, words matter. Meaning matters. You might die alone many decades from now, but almost certainly you won't be executed. When you're feeling down and you intentionally choose words that are false, you're feeling your own state of mind.
Being private actually helps with global warming, AI and human rights because it gives the beast less to feed on. Less data or "good data" means fewer computers processing data and wasting energy.
Keep it up, you'll find yourself in more interesting circles than the mindless consumers
::edit:: On your comment of the end of civilization, yeah, being private might save your life or others. Historically data collection and processing makes it easier for bad people to hunt down other people.
Not saying this will happen, and I don't believe it will, but if you're worried about some scary future, then keeping yourself private might be beneficial
I don't know about this. How much energy is really spent processing this kind of consumer data? how much of that comes from dirty energy sources?
Massive amounts. In the US, see Texas and how their energy grid has been under massive strain since new data centers are popping up there. It also uses a massive amount of water and natural resources. Global this happens, it's one of the more obvious ways of direct impact our resources and energy
For an example: Watching a DVD locally has an immediate energy use, and that use is monitored and then sold to data brokers by the energy companies (at least in the US). Pretty much end of story.
Now the same movie being watched on a big streaming service, they use AI to process and suggest the movie, catalog and analyze every other user data to build their algorithm and AI better, and then usually sell that data to data brokers who then sell to other data brokers... Not to mention the servers needed to route the traffic to the correct computers and all of the computers in between. And that's just considering a private use of a streaming service directly without a smartTV and an ISP that isn't also selling their browsing habits...
Which all require energy, water and precious metals, few if any are "green" or cleanly extracted
Privacy is a shield. It is useful to protect against a threat. It doesn't have to perfectly protect against the threat. But the important thing is to have a threat model and construct your privacy concerns around it.
Ask yourself what you believe will be a threat to you and then criticize those beliefs. Use this self-critical process to decide on your first idea of a threat model.
In this world the companies are willing always more money and the govs more power. Since the beginning of the Humans we speak and we discuss physically, and the capitalism couldn't ever remove that to people. But now there is a new way of communication that everyone can use, the usage of internet. And the companies really understand that so they went fast to go before the people and catch this new technology to deceive the people on the real use case and way of using it. Today the way of distance communicating is mostly in the hands of big techs, so as I seen here, privacy is a shield and it shouldn't be perfect but is to protect you from big techs. The privacy is not going to resolve some of the most important problems in the world, but in the world we leave if we do nothing to counter these acts it would be even worst. So privacy is a shield to protect the population from the future consequences of capitalism.