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Comment by ipaddr | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't worry about it the truth is the internet forgets quickly. Important popular things disappear quicker than you expect. User data and logs exponentially becomes less valuable as time goes out. Know you are at McDonalds now is much more valuable then that you visited 10 years ago and being able to connect this data becomes difficult when devices switch. Video from 2005's is generally not easily consumable because of format changes and quality from a few years ago makes older video painful to watch. Even facebook starts forgetting data you upload.. stops being searchable after a few years.

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I think the exact opposite. It's becoming easier and easier to crunch all that data. Let the AIs build up a perfect model of each individual human. No one needs to sit through and watch all that video content. And video formats are very much a non-issue, even if it's a pixelated mess, GenAI is very good at making sense of that.

The more data there is on you, the easier it'll be to fingerprint you in the future. Google photos can recognize me as a baby. Even I can't tell myself apart from my brother.

But the fact that you prefer McDonald’s will not forgotten and will be part of some data profile on you , sold and resold by data brokers.

and saved into weights.

Sorry, but who cares?

This is the fascinating question, because people who would normally respond on 'who cares' question, are also the ones, who know full well that even participation in an online forum is effectively builds up their profile. I am beyond redemption so I am their avatar.

> I am beyond redemption so I am their avatar.

I have no idea what that sentence means.

I also have no idea why I should care that someone knows I like to go to McDonald’s.

Well, when the transplant committee uses it (your data) to triage your new heart or whatever

I’d be more worried if that was how it worked. But it isn’t — at least not where I live.

Yet. All signs point to its inevitability.

I waited a while to reply to see if anyone else had anything to say about this. What jurisdiction doesn't triage heart transplants? Someone who eats $3,000/yr at mcdonalds vs someone who eats $50/yr at mcdonalds would be information pertinent to triage, wouldn't it? Even if you suppose that all human life is equal, then the amount of time a life is extended with a transplant matters, and the $50/yr person will probably (in the statistical sense) live longer than the other, all other things equal.

Maybe the committees don't "action" on this information because they don't have it, but it would be very silly to not use this information. I'd be curious what sort of triage wouldn't use this information. First-come first-serve?

if your goal is to maximize the length of human lives, that is, to put donor hearts to the maximum use for value, you'd have to use information like this!

What jurisdiction does? Seriously, can you name one? Is that how it works in the US?

I am not a doctor, but if the test is whether your diet could become a factor then you do not have to look further than heart transplant waiting list criteria[1][2]. For example, please note that 'morbid obesity' is noted as a relative contraindication. McD enjoyers are not known for being fit ( I should know ).

I personally think you are asking the wrong question here.

[1]https://www.upmc.com/services/transplant/heart/process/waiti... [2]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/transplant/referring-physici...

What about 10 years from now, it came out that some politician liked (or "engaged with) a bunch of racist videos when he was a kid?

That would make the politician 25 or younger. Easy to pivot. Now 20 years would put the person at 35. You could survive a crack addition in your teens 20 years later if that came out.

But evidence starts disappearing. 20 bad articles about you in 5 years 10 might survive in 10 years maybe 2 might survive.

What if this year it came out that a politician falsified business records and was criminally convicted for it? Why you'd make him President, of course!

There was certainly a fad when social media was new to get all worked up about finding out about something someone did in the past, where people were even losing their shit over something that would normally be innocuous like a photo of a teacher enjoying a beer at a party. But, I think we're kind of over it at this point. Fashion trends don't last forever.

JD Vance had college pictures of him plastered on the news, so i am not sure what your yardstick's for measuring how "over it" we are as a society.

Certainly once the elderly (those who follow the news) start to latch onto a fashion trend, it is definitely over.

The news cycle at that level churns on anything and everything will come out. Are you comfortable with them interviewing old neighbors or people who went to the same school but didn't know you? At that level online activities are my least concern, old girlfriends or work colleagues or ex friends can spread the most impactful dirt. When material doesn't exist they just throw dirt to see what sticks.

You wouldn't have that problem. Try looking someone up these days in Google and you soon discover everything lives in walled in gardens like Facebook or instagram or iCloud or Snapchat or telegram.

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