To answer your question… Do you close the door when you take a shit ?
First, because it protects otherwise vulnerable groups of people who fight for freedom and justice. Whistleblowers, journalists, independent intelligence groups need privacy to uncover the crime and abuse of the powerful without fearing repercussions.
Second, because being watched forcibly changes people’s behavior. People are forced to be “normal”, they do not allow themselves the same liberties they have when they’re in private. When this becomes default, it negatively affects mental health, inducing severe stress and anxiety.
Third, because there are cultural conventions at the backbone of our society and the way it functions that are trampled by the invasion of privacy. You are taught to be uncomfortable when naked around others, to close off when you go to the toilet, to talk through your deeply personal or intimate matters exclusively with a select few etc. This isn’t merely an isolated cultural quirk - it defines how we treat each other, how we communicate, how our sexuality and reproduction function (and who gets reproduced to begin with), how our relationships work, what kind of language we use, and more. Letting anyone or anything in just like that naturally makes many uncomfortable, and has the potential to be ultimately disastrous for the society we know - a kind of society built with expectation of privacy as one of its cornerstones.
Privacy is a fundamental right that protects autonomy, personal dignity, and the freedom to engage with society without fear of judgment or control. It acts as a crucial safeguard against authoritarianism. Without it, every choice we make can be monitored, recorded, and scrutinized by those in power. History shows that surveillance is often used not to protect people, but to label harmless behaviors as suspicious or deviant, creating pretexts for further erosion of rights.
But beyond its role in protecting civil liberties, privacy is essential for personal growth and mental well-being. We all need space to be ourselves, to practice new skills without perfection, explore interests that might seem uncool or immature, enjoy “guilty pleasure” media, or simply act silly, without worrying about how it will be perceived or used against us. These moments aren’t trivial. They’re where creativity, healing, and self-discovery happen. Privacy gives us room to evolve, to make mistakes, and to be human
This! 1000x this! I’ve spent years educating myself on tech, privacy, psychology etc trying to answer this question. The root thoughts are berried so deep it’s hard to find the signal in the noise. I’ve seen more concise explanations similar to yours in the past year than I have in the previous decade. I think the collective consciousness may finally be getting to a place where they’re starting to ask the right questions, and thankfully concise answer like this are imo the right directions to point people.
Couldn’t agree more. The rise of digital surveillance has sparked a necessary counterwave, a deeper reexamination of why we valued privacy in the first place.
And while I’d love to claim credit, it sounds like you and I map have taken a similar deep dive into the topic. I’m really just standing on the shoulders of thinkers who’ve been wrestling with this far longer and more deeply than I have. My response was just an attempt to distill the ideas that resonated most, hopefully with a little clarity.
Glad it landed.
This is very well put! Great comment :3
Ok. A counterargument.
Information wants to be free. And to let it flow freely is the least-effort solution.
By letting information flow freely we approach a state where everybody knows everything about everything and everybody. This could be pretty great and seems the easy and natural way to go. A kind of superdemocracy. By inhibiting this evolution we create a state of deformity and disease.
Information doesn’t “want” anything, you’re personifying a concept.
It’s a figure of speech.
It means that information propagates extremely easily.
It means that information propagates extremely easily.
Sounds like you’ve just answered your question about why privacy is important.
I appreciate the sentiment that “information wants to be free,” and there’s real value in open access to knowledge. But I’m not sure that vision logically extends to all information, including the deeply personal, being universally accessible.
People aren’t just data packets. We’re complex, evolving individuals. The idea that we could, or should, live in a world where “everyone knows everything about everyone” assumes both a superhuman capacity for processing information and a uniform comfort with exposure, which simply doesn’t reflect human reality. If we’re imagining a sci-fi ideal like the Borg collective, where minds are fused into a single hive consciousness, then sure, total information flow makes sense. But that comes at the cost of individuality, autonomy, and the very idea of personal choice. And that’s not a future I’m eager to embrace.
Anyway, here’s my key point. Protecting personal privacy doesn’t hinder the free flow of information, it enables it. The right to privacy safeguards your ability to seek information freely, without surveillance or judgment. It’s what allows you to use encryption, a VPN, or a private browser to explore ideas, access censored content, or speak anonymously. Without privacy, the powerful can track, pressure, or punish dissent, chilling free expression rather than encouraging it.
So I agree, knowledge should be free. But personal lives shouldn’t be public records. Privacy isn’t the enemy of openness, it’s one of its strongest defenders
But I’m not sure that vision logically extends to all information…
I see it more as a physical fact. Keeping a secret takes more effort than open communication. Information propagates like a fart.
assumes both a superhuman capacity for processing information
Well that would be google. You don’t need to carry the information around with you, you just need to know how to craft the right query.
and a uniform comfort with exposure,
It might just be the taboo of the hour too.
But that comes at the cost of individuality, autonomy, and the very idea of personal…
That’s a stretch
Anyway, here’s my key point. Protecting personal privacy doesn’t hinder the free flow of information, it enables it.
That’s a big stretch. Literally “inhibiting the flow increases the flow”. I mean I see your argument. But the constraining force here isn’t free information, it’s judgement and persecution.
So I agree, knowledge should be free.
Mine wasn’t an argument of moral imperative but physics. And fighting physics is exhausting.
I see it more as a physical fact. Keeping a secret takes more effort than open communication. Information propagates like a fart.
That’s not universally true. Information is lost and forgotten all the time, often simply because doing nothing to preserve or share it was easier. Silence, deletion, decay, these are also low-effort outcomes. And even if uncontrolled dissemination were the default, the effort something takes doesn’t determine its value.
Well that would be google. You don’t need to carry the information around with you, you just need to know how to craft the right query.
In that case, I misunderstood the scope of your earlier point, thanks for clarifying. But in that case, without universal, equal access to that kind of informational power, your “superdemocracy” becomes unevenly distributed. If only some people have the time, tools, or training to effectively query and interpret vast data, then knowledge, and influence, still concentrates in the hands of the few. Asymmetry persists. So I don’t see how this would notably improve anything. It sounds like the world we have now, except you can google what I had for dinner, and the government can have easier access to uncover and silence dissent. Still not a future I’m eager to see.
It might just be the taboo of the hour too.
Perhaps. But I’m not aware of any society or historical period where some form of personal privacy wasn’t valued, whether in the home, in correspondence, or in thought. Given its consistent role in mental health, identity formation, and safe exploration, I’d argue privacy isn’t just cultural noise, it’s closer to a foundational human need.
That’s a stretch
Fair, in light of my more accurate understanding of you point, it is a bit. In relation to my original assumption, i.e. the Borg, not at all.
That’s a big stretch. Literally “inhibiting the flow increases the flow”. I mean I see your argument. But the constraining force here isn’t free information, it’s judgement and persecution.
This one, however, isn’t a stretch at all. You’re saying the real barriers are judgment and persecution, and that’s exactly the point. Privacy protects against those very forces. In practical, measurable terms, privacy enables the free creation and dissemination of information by giving people the safety to explore, speak, and share without fear.
Yes, in a frictionless, consequence-free hypothetical, where no one is punished for their thoughts or curiosity, maybe privacy would be redundant. But that’s not the world we live in. In this world, surveillance chills inquiry. People self-censor. Whistleblowers hesitate. Artists, activists, and ordinary users hold back. So privacy doesn’t inhibit information flow, it prevents its suppression.
You seem to want to strip away the context that gives privacy its meaning, as if it were a mechanical variable rather than a social safeguard. Maybe you’re asking whether privacy has intrinsic value? But like nearly everything, value is relational. What’s the value of information if it’s weaponized the moment it’s shared? What good is “free flow” in a world where no one dares to think aloud?
Is there intrinsic value in recording and sharing everything, regardless of consequence? Only if we assume people don’t need space to grow, err, or change. And if no one cared about power.
Mine wasn’t an argument of moral imperative but physics. And fighting physics is exhausting.
Ah, but that’s the stretch. As I said, information doesn’t always spread, it decays, disappears, gets ignored. Entropy cuts both ways. And even if uncontrolled dissemination were an immutable law, I don’t find the argument that “it’s tiring to resist nature” a compelling reason to surrender a right that enables dignity, safety, and selfhood.
Frankly, I find the alternative far more exhausting: living in a world where every action, search, or stumble is permanent, public, and subject to interpretation by those in power. That’s not liberation. It’s a different kind of labor, one with no off switch.
Information doesn’t “want to be free” the companies that want my personal habits and interests have invested a whole lot of effort in acquiring it.
What’s your credit card number? I am curious.
Do you have children? What are their names and where do they go to school when you are not watching over them? again I am curious.
What do you care for deeply and value most? Is it your family, a friend? Who are they and what would you do to avoid them from any pain, again I am curious.
What is your daily routine? When can I expect to see you in a specific location and when will you be away from your possessions in your home? What kind of security do you have on your physical space and digital space? I am curious.
What kinds of things do you like and not like? What would you do if I could provide you the things that you favour? Or what of if I subtly introduced those things that you dislike purposefully? I am curious.
What do you get paid at your work? What if I was negotiating my salary and seeking a promotion above you, what if I made more than you and did less?
What do you make of generative AI? And what if I had your likeness passed on to a model to mimic your look, your sound, your appearance and mannerisms and opinions? What if I made you say or do or support something that you don’t stand for? What then?
What if you made a living off something and you only received payment once you had presented this thing to the client or intended audience, what if you showed me what this was before you did this and got paid? Would that bother you? Would that affect your income at all?
The human condition is not one of a utopia, mind your own business as best you can but don’t expect that everyone has been given an equal footing in this world. For your sake and the sake of others, privacy is a matter of respect at a macro and global scale and beyond that it has implications to intellectual property, the ability for a single person or a nation to maintain resources and income, and allow at the most basic level a person to have a conversation with themselves or with god and be truely vulnerable without any judgement whatsoever.
Because knowledge is power and most people don’t like giving whomever power over them for no reason. Also, it shouldn’t matter why privacy is important to people, the fact that it is should suffice to protect it.
It’s important because we say it’s important?
Hmm. That seems a little sketchy. Reality becomes whatever’s popular. Propaganda becomes the ruling force. Etc.
Actually, yes! What is “important” in a general sense is a similar question to that of the meaning of life. In the end there is no external, absolute rule of nature that decides this for us but we must create our own values. And privacy is such a value. In part you can derive it from others like personal freedom but that only moves the question. Different opinions on what our values should be and how to resolve conflicting ones in specific situations is the subject of ethics and has been debated since humans could debate.
None of your goddamn business.
very meta
Why is privacy important? Be specific.
That’s how I prompt AI, not how I would address [a community of] people. But that’s just me, I guess.
Because it’s not the first 99 people that know all about you that are the problem, it’s the 1 in a 100 who are out to grief or scam or steal or coerce.
People love to share about themselves, and that’s fine… unless there’s a malicious actor prompting them to overshare.
People love to gossip about each other, and that’s usually tolerable… until rumor is weaponized.
Privacy rights can be likened to a strong door keeping the wolves out.
Another option would be to do away with the wolves.
Which is cheaper for our society?
How would you do away with the wolves today, if the non-wolves could become wolves tomorrow?
I don’t see that as a possible option at all.
I don’t know.
The design of the door is a well-researched topic. The elimination of wolves, less so.
One approach would be to feed the wolves. A well fed wolf has little interest in breaking your door.
One approach to keeping the wolves fed might be UBI.
An old approach is religious indoctrination.
is a well-researched topic. The elimination of wolves, less so.
There’s plenty of research on wolves, their disappearance/eradication, and (incentivised, supported) reintroduction to Europe.
A well fed wolf has little interest in breaking your door.
I find this symbolism stupid. Wolves aren’t exactly well known to attack doors.
One approach to keeping the wolves fed might be UBI.
They were talking about sheep becoming wolves, not wolves going hungry. Wolves will be wolves. A UBI won’t change that.
The door is cheaper.
History has shown, time and time again, that any wolf-eradication program will, almost immediately, be taken over by the wolves themselves and used for their own cruel ends.
“Privacy” in the modern sense is less about protecting you from personal embarrassment or financial loss, and more about protecting society from the dangers of mass data collection.
Historical examples of mass datasets that were misused:
- The Nazis used demographic records (birth, death, marriage records, etc.) to identify Jews and other undesirables in conquered countries.
- Japanese Americans were identified for internment in part through illegal use of census information.
- The Rwanda genocide was facilitated by tribal information being printed on drivers licenses.
In none of these examples were the data collected for the evil purposes it was eventually used for. In some cases, the evil purposes were completely forbidden by the rules governing the data, but they were used anyway.
Information is a form of knowledge. Knowledge is power. And power in the wrong hands is dangerous.
Because people will abuse information about you that they find out.
I wonder if there’s another way to keep information abuse from happening.
Remove all humans other than yourself.
Think about it like this, if privacy wasn’t important, why would there be so many forces trying to invade people’s privacy?
If it really didn’t matter, then we should be able to choose whether we get privacy or not without it being significantly more difficult to choose one over the other.
To put it simply - it’s not anyone’s fucking business of what I do. Government needs to stay out of my bedroom and love life as to who I decide on who I want to love, bar doing it with minors understandably. Churches need to stay out of it too.
It’s not my workplace’s business to pry into my personal life about why it affects me and my performance. They should just understand that people have bad and good days and leave it at that.
Privacy is important because nobody likes or wants to be targeted.
Look, you want specifics but didn’t provide any. That’s basically manipulative. It suggests you don’t want a real answer, but you want to say you tried to find one.
You are clearly tripping.
Because I’m happy when I have privacy and unhappy when I don’t.
