Secrecy is necessary for privacy, and you can find plenty of essays defending privacy rights.
Also, if I asked you for the password to your HN account you probably wouldn't tell me, because it's a secret - and that doesn't make you evil.
Also, if I asked you for the password to your HN account you probably wouldn't tell me, because it's a secret - and that doesn't make you evil.
Not so many people know that YC has a secret [insert whatever it is that they have that is secret but that we don't know about here].
I also have plenty of personal secrets that you don't know exist, but I don't see why that would change anything.
I would tell you, but I would ask you why you wanted it first.
There's no inherent need for us to have passwords. If people were always good then I would have no need for a password on this account. The login could just be "username" and one could assume that no one would pose as someone else.
> Secrecy is necessary for privacy, and you can find plenty of essays defending privacy rights.
I think "privacy rights" are completely redundant if one has property rights. If I have property rights on my home, there's no need for additional "privacy rights".
That's a rather fringe belief, incompatible with widely held conventions such as the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (among many others).
I hold the equally fringe belief that property is theft.