Apologies. Let's bury my furious Leninist ranting. Or at least embalm it for posterity*. This is, after all, the internet.

*open to the public on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10:00–13:00


Please could you expand? I can't see how privacy can be solved without either laws (politics) or deliberate modification of a value system (politics). What sort of positive reinforcement? My ideas are just ideas, not a definitive answer. I'd welcome other (and especially conflicting) opinions.

I find it interesting and thought-provoking, but if you printed it out and nailed it to the church door in Wittenberg, it would just be ignored. How might we convince society as a whole?

Nearly. It was Martin Luther King. He nailed a Proud Boy to the door, kickstarting the BLM movement. This led, by an improbable sequence of accidents, to the formation of federal Germany. He even wrote a song about it.

Note to self:  Merit this now....

The manifestation of value in a free capitalist market is money, and only money. To make privacy valuable, we have to monetise it. Instead of an apparently valueless commodity that people are happy to give away for free, we make their privacy worth $$$. But there is only one result:

In fact, worse than resolving nothing, it legitimises the surveillance capitalism and the loss of privacy. Privacy is no longer being stolen; it is being purchased at the market rate.

But ideas have no intrinsic value in a capitalist market. Their value lies only in their potential to create money.


I still can't see any route to making people value and want to retain their privacy other than by a deliberate modification of the definition of value, such that it is separated from money, such that privacy itself becomes something that is desirable, rather than being something that is considered primarily in terms of its monetary equivalent.
I don't believe that any grassroots approach can be successful. Anything that is a threat to the system is suppressed efficiently and with utter ruthlessness. So in practice, as I see it, the most likely (rather, least unlikely of all the unlikely options) is that someone different gets elected. Coming back to the US (sorry, but it is a perfect example)... Biden is the system, Trump is the system on steroids (so, in my view, worse), and then Sanders is the alternative with a different definition of value.

You are of course correct. I was wrong, my focus too narrow.

How might we use family and friendship bonds to encourage people to value and retain their privacy? Is there a way to associate privacy with reward in this context? Or is the approach to reinforce the negative consequences to family and friends of surrendering our privacy? If so, how? Many people currently give away through social media not only their own privacy, but also that of loved ones. Is this an angle of attack? So instead of saying "don't share your personal data" to which people think "it's my data, I don't mind"... we say "don't share the personal data of your loved ones" and emphasise that to do so might cause emotional or financial damage to these people that you care about. The result then being that you value their right to privacy, and so are more likely in turn to value your own.

Or is there something else, other than family/friends, that everyone (or almost everyone) values more than they value $$$?

Man, that app is so snitch!

I think the word would just get redefined as slang for cool. This might be direct manipulation through some subtle marketing, or it might happen organically once everyone started calling these evil things 'snitch'.

Bad, wicked, sick.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that language can be and is used to modify perspectives and opinions. Even such ludicrous neologisms as 'alternative facts' and 'fake news' have power. I'm not making yet another anti-Trump comment here, but it's fascinating/disturbing how effective he has been at manipulating the lexicon. His success has spawned countless imitators. As a recent example, the UK government is one of the first in the world to approve the new Covid-19 vaccine. Whilst other countries conduct thorough studies on safety and efficacy, the UK simply says 'we'll take it right now!'. But this irresponsibility is immediately cast as a success story. Here's MP Gavin Williamson yesterday, worshipping at the altar of Trumpism as he explains why the UK is first:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/dec/03/gavin-williamson-britains-a-much-better-country-than-all-of-them

The establishment is already so snitch at using language to their advantage, that I don't think it can be weaponised against them in the defence of privacy.