[extropy-chat] privacy rights

[Heartland]

Anders Sandberg wrote:
"Most of the privacy abuses we worry about come from two directions.
Concentrations of power like corporations and state, and people in our
close social network. We can use laws and politics against the first,
enforcing transparency, accountability and maybe paying back externalities
of privacy loss. The second group is much trickier, because no law can
protect you from the scorn of your sister or a disapproving mother. "


This is very true. Power, in all forms, corrupts. People are acutely aware of how 
power is being abused by groups of *other people* but always fail to realize their 
own abuses. Online debates are a good example of this. The very same people who are 
extremely sensitive to, say, government abuses that stem from a desire to control 
other people, see nothing wrong with crucifying others for their unpopular 
opinions, especially if they see others have been doing that as well. The group 
gives them license to abuse and they are more than happy to pull the trigger.

Abuse of power is inversely proportional to the amount of accountability for the 
abuse. In other words, if you give people an opportunity to abuse they won't have 
to pay for, the abuse will happen. Human psychology doesn't seem to contain a 
mechanism that would be able to recognize and stop itself from inflicting abuse in 
the absence of consequences.

I'm afraid that the only way to prevent abuse of power is to learn to recognize 
those situations that promote abuse. Generally, I think that learning social 
psychology seems essential in an effort to debug one's own psychology full of evil 
evolutionary baggage.

S.