Reconciling Information Privacy and Liberty? 871
thetan asks: "F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that 'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.' However, for many outsiders, it's hard to understand how cliques reconcile seemingly contrarian views.
For example, many US Republicans are against abortion but in favour of the death penalty (no doubt they have their reasons). Amongst the Slashdot commentariat, one often hears that information wants to be free, almost as a catchcry of the open source, copyfight and related info-libertarian movements. OTOH, these same Slashdot readers stridently guard their privacy, so presumably information about their shopping preferences or websurfing does not 'want to be free'. How does the intelligent and functional Slashdot crowd reconcile the liberty of other people's information with the privacy of their own?"
A transparent society the only consistent approach (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Libre, *not* gratis. (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, "Information wants to be free" originally was about gratis. The second, forgotten half of the phrase was "Information also wants to be expensive." It was meant to describe the conflict between the ever-easier, ever-cheaper methods to store and transmit information, and the ever-increasing value placed upon information by those who create and/or use it.
Re:Libre, *not* gratis. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Prejudices (Score:3, Informative)
Note: I call myself a libertarian, if that affects how you read this.
Tolerance is a fairly complex action verb that implies a previous or simultaneous judgement, which is a necessarily subjective process. You may disagree with someone else's judgement. Understanding the words "tolerance" and "intolerance" requires a little thought and care. Two simple conclusions that I draw about the subject of tolerance are:
Tolerance of intolerance breeds intolerance.
Intolerance of intolerance breeds tolerance.
Example: if someone is spouting racist b.s. and I fail to voice my objection, I've allowed the world to become more racist. Something I consider a bad thing.
Liberal has been locally redefined. You're wasting your breath by objecting. It's a reality of rhetoric that happens all the time to self-applied labels. Visit Australia, where the right-wingers call themselves the Liberals. You might as well object to the US party names "Democrat" and "Republican". Also, the radical and reactionary regularly change places as new ideas become established and the person desiring change now becomes the person desiring the status-quo (they now have the situation they used to be hoping for).
Open-minded is differently nuanced, but involves another mostly-subjective judgement. It quickly boils down to the epistemological question of "What is 'useful knowledge'?" At some early point in learning a new fact, you have to filter out the complete nonsense. Simultaneously, you have to leave open the possibility that what you already know is wrong and the new fact that contradicts what you know is correct.
People who can't filter out nonsense might be called "gullible", "quack bait", "vegans", etc. People who can't admit they might be wrong might be called "closed-minded". People who can effectively balance these two concerns might be called "open-minded".
In my experience, most people willing to lunge into liberal vs. conservative political arguments are almost universally closed minded. No matter how much almost everyone wants to be thought of as "open minded".
At this point, you're arguing against language and the art of rhetoric. Start arguing substantively and you may have more fun (but maybe not).
Regards,
Ross
It may be too late to post this, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Hackerethics (CCC) [www.ccc.de]
Specifically I am referring to: "Make public data available, protect private data."
To quote the CCC: "To protect the privacy of the individual and to strengthen the freedom of the information which concern the public the yet last point was added."
You didn't describe theft-- (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is the BESTEST TROLL EVAR!!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, it may have looked like a troll because of the death penalty/abortion example. Whoops.
I was genuinely curious about exploring the ideas around information liberty (and how that sits with eg. intellectual property vs privacy).
Unfortunately, while there were a few good posts in the ensuing discussion they got drowned out by the death penalty/abortion issue, which I only used as an example of contradictory ideas. I'd like to explain why.
I'm not American, and for non-American Westerners there is no serious debate around taking away abortion or instituiting the death penalty. It's been that way for generations and is not about to change any time soon. So, I (unthinkingly) chose that example because it's so, well, settled for us. Kind of the political version of the flat vs round Earth debate.
As a member of the Anglosphere, I should have been more aware that this is a contentious issue in the US. Hell, if I'd read the (later) post about equal time for creation [slashdot.org] I'm sure it would have been top of mind!
But, where I come from, church on Sunday, anti-abortion, pro-death penalty, prayer-in-school, creationists make up less than 5% of the population. Hell, only about a third are even Christian (and they're of a much milder variety).
So my mistake was using an example that (to Americans) is inflammatory while not taking into account the preponderance of Americans on this site.
My fault. I wished Cliff - persumably an American with his ear closer to the ground - had edited out that phrase as it didn't really add anything.
Cheers,-Thetan.
Sheesh, I'm sorry I asked ... (Score:2, Informative)
People, it was not a troll. I was genuinely interested in the information privacy/liberty thing.
The reason it came across as troll-ish was because the trivial example of contradictory ideas I used was - I realise now - inflammatory to about half of Americans, who seem to be about 90% of Slashdotters.
See here for full explanation:
Re:This is the BESTEST TROLL EVAR!!!! by thetan (Score:1) Friday August 05, @01:39PM [slashdot.org]
To all those wishing to engage in me debate about the death penalty, abortion, separation of church and state and other uninteresting issues: I'm not going to help you untangle your fucked up worldview.
(If you're desperate to have your say, why don't you run along to my blog [netspace.net.au] and post on the forum there?)
To those who stayed on-topic with thoughtful replies, thanks for your discussion. I read and appreciated them.
To those who've emailed me with back-slapping congratulatory emails about "good troll" and "take that slashweenies" etc - it was not my intent, so save your praise.
-Thetan.