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Comment by bobsoap | Hacker News Reader

I find I'm having trouble arguing in a meaningful way with people who don't share the same concerns regarding the privacy of their data. I'm running out of arguments - no matter what I say, they'll respond with a shrug.

"So what? I don't have anything to hide."

"So what? They are a big company, surely they won't abuse my data."

"So what? How has Cambridge Analytica affected me?"

And for the ultimate capitulation: "So what? They already have so much data on everyone, you can't avoid it anyway."

Brave new world.

This is not only coming from folks with little understanding of tech, but also from "technologically literate" people who should know better. Sticking your head in the sand is just so damn convenient.

Even a comparatively widely reported privacy scandal like FB's can't seem to sway these folks... apparently because they feel like it hasn't affected them personally.

How do you deal with this kind of attitude?

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The best distillation I found was that this is all a version of the "Nothing to Hide" argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

There are some points to counter with in the article. Bruce Schneier quotes Cardinal Richelieu: give me 6 lines written by the most honest man and I'll find something in there to hang him by. Has the benefit of historical perspective!

In general I frame the discussion so that I can emphasize the effects of surveilance on society and key members of society (judges, government employees, journalists, law enforcement, doctors etc). They could be blackmailed or reveal the data of many others through their carelessnes.

The average Joe is not clever enough to figure out what's happening and is probably not worth the effort to educate them. Try it on family and friends, but don't get your hopes up :)

IT workers are a special case: they think they're super smart but are just as clueless about the topic like the general population. And they help develop these systems, so it might be worthwile to try to use social pressure to get them to quit helping the abusers.

Ultimately this can only be solved through new laws and regulations, like the GDPR.

You deal with that by giving an actual example of something bad that has happened to someone who has not worried about what Google tracking them. I haven't seen one.

I mean, people who advise me not to text and drive can give real examples of people who died because they did that. That's tangible. All I hear is a lot of people telling me what I should care about but refuse to supply anything but intangibles and theoreticals.

And I'm talking about Google here, not Facebook.

Do you actually play an important role in society which gives you access to the information of many people or which would make others interested in blackmailing you? If yes, you'd hopefully already be aware of those risks and also educate your contacts on how to act in a provacy-conscious way.

Otherwise use Google, use whatever you want, nobody cares.

I usually link to this 2006 column by Bruce Schneier – it is both lucid and succinct:

The Eternal Value of Privacy

https://www.wired.com/2006/05/the-eternal-value-of-privacy/

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