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Have you ever seen something so crazy and against everything you know of a topic, you had to know more about it? (infosec.pub)
submitted 1 week ago by 11111one11111@lemmy.world to c/casualconversation@lemm.ee
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So I was browsing audiobooks to download when I came accross the title you see in the screenshot. The title reads:

Exposed: How Revealing Your Data and Eliminating Privacy Increases Trust and Liberates Humanity - Ben Malisow

Stopped me mid scroll and had to read the description to see if I understood the title correctly. Sure as shit it really is a book defending the trend of diminishing privacy and justifies the mining of your data.

Against my better judgment I downloaded the tor file and plan on listening to it today. Ill try and edit this post at the end of the day with what the book was like or if I couldn't finish it cuz of how ridiculous it is.

To save the click to read the description from the screenshot:

Discover why privacy is a counterproductive, if not obsolete, concept in this startling new book

It’s only a matter of time - the modern notion of privacy is quickly evaporating because of technological advancement and social engagement. Whether we like it or not, all our actions and communications are going to be revealed for everyone to see. ‘Exposed: How Revealing Your Data and Eliminating Privacy Increases Trust and Liberates Humanity’ takes a controversial and insightful look at the concept of privacy and persuasively argues that preparing for a post-private future is better than exacerbating the painful transition by attempting to delay the inevitable.

Security expert and author Ben Malisow systematically dismantles common notions of privacy and explains how most arguments in favor of increased privacy are wrong; privacy in our personal lives leaves us more susceptible to being bullied or blackmailed; governmental and military privacy leads to an imbalance of power between citizen and state; and military supremacy based on privacy is an obsolete concept.

Perfect for anyone interested in the currently raging debates about governmental, institutional, corporate, and personal privacy, and the proper balance between the public and the private, Exposed also belongs on the shelves of security practitioners and policymakers everywhere.

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[–] m_f@discuss.online 6 points 1 week ago

For any argument of this nature, you can usually counter it with "ok, you first", like when policymakers talk about drug testing welfare recipients or the like. Let's see people like Trump or Musk livestream themselves 24/7 before pushing this on people with less social power.

At any rate, to answer the question, all of the Sovereign Citizen stuff posted over in !insanepeoplefacebook@lemmy.world has been super fascinating. Somehow, the government is all-powerful and hostile, but also if you say a few magic incantations they'll throw up their hands let you do whatever you want.

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 6 points 1 week ago

What bitch ass cuck wrote this garbage?!

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I've seen this sort of argument. It boils down to three things:

  1. Argument from dubious premise: "you'll inevitably lose your privacy."
  2. Fallacy of appeal to nature: "since you'll lose your privacy, losing privacy is good."
  3. Missing the bloody point. It's like saying that the solution for expensive house maintenance is to become homeless.

Anyway, answering your question: once I dug really deep into the hollow Earth conspiracy "theory". I never took it seriously, I looked for that because it's crazy and ridiculous. And it was fun to see quacks proposing that there's a sun inside Earth, sentient life, and that they'll eventually get rid of us outers.

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It also conveniently overlooks the massive issue of privacy in the first place.

It's not a bad thing to live in a world where you can't be blackmailed because everyone already knows everything about you.

It could be theoretically utopian to live in a world where privacy is not an issue.

The gigantic fucking pink dragon in the room is that the people who have the power over the information that is made public, want to use it to make money off of you in every single facet of your life.

If they could strip mine your grandmother for the calcium in her bones, and make a penny off of it, (that is, a penny more than her current remaining economic index of output into the economy) her ass would be tossed into the fucking meat grinder.

When there is some sort of ruling body that cares more about the happiness of every single person on the planet more than they care about making money or having power, and those are the only people that have access to your personal data, then yes.

But right now, people are people, and every person is evil to some degree, there's no value for you or me in giving them unfettered access to every aspect of our existence.

We are not robots. We are not automatons. We are not rational. We are not reliable. We are not repeatable. We are not resources to be exploited. We are not cogs in machines. We are not grist for the mill.

We are human fucking beings with the exact same intrinsic value and worth to our very existence as every other living human being on this planet, regardless of every other possible situation that exists.

To protect our intrinsic value, we must have privacy and autonomy. And we cannot have autonomy without privacy, and we cannot have privacy without autonomy.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

Well said.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

"Did human trafficking write this article?"

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Well, I have a perverse fascination with conspiracy theories.. And no, I don't believe in them. I just like looking up their underlying claims in an effort to understand what causes people to subscribe to them.