Privacy

Of course everyone will argue that privacy is something that everyone else should have the right to. Since it is for the most part seen as a basic human right. However, as we are moving into a more and more digital society, the topic of privacy seems to become increasingly less relevant. Which actually kind of makes sense since most of our privet activities are been done online. Therefore, there is a higher chance of it been monitored. So in a sense, it is actually logical that some people don't see privacy as a necessity anymore or for some to be happy to make their privet information public online. But is privacy really coming to and end? Because after all nothing last forever. So is it really the end for privacy? there are many argument for or against the topic of privacy most of them are mostly on an individual point of view but here we are going to focus of the ones that are mostly based on a general view point.

Let's talk first about the arguments for privacy. Again the first argument most people will agree is that it should be considered a basic human right and just like any other basic human rights out there, privacy should be allowed to whoever desires or more importantly needs it. This will be the general argument that most people will support. And the reason behind this will be that there are different types of information. Ones that if publicly available could not cause any harm to any one in general and others that if available publicly could hurt or cause harm to whoever that information belongs to. Think about the information you could give to a stranger like what is your favorite clothing brand. Compare to information you could never give a stranger like your bank and credit card details (even tho some people will actually do that). But in general, those are considered information you should not give to a stranger and the other is considered as one you maybe give to a stranger you do not know. And privacy is what allows you to be able to keep personal information to yourself and make sure it is not available to people who aren't intended to know.

And then there is the argument against privacy which could be seen in multiple different ways. But one common argument against it is the it gives the ability to allow people with malicious intention the capability of not been detected while planing to cause harm. Or in other words, since some people will want to cause harm to a person or to multiple people, they could be planning to do so in private and they will never be detected. And so we should make sure that privacy is monitored and under controlled in a way that no one could use it personally. Since this will make sure that any malicious planning that anyone is planning is seen and thus prevented. This argument is most likely to be supported by institution rather than individual or tho to be fair there are quiet a lot of individual supporting this view as well. Mainly individual who have actually experienced such situation themselves.

Which then leads us to a kind of interesting question. If you know that you are not planing to do harm to anyone or aren't hiding anything malicious, then why will you want privacy? But even this argument has a reasonable counter argument against it. which is that by eliminating everyone's privacy really isn't making everyone safe but rather making everyone vulnerable to harm as all their personal information is exposed. The logical point of view for this is that if everyone give away all of their personal and sensitive information away, then anyone can easily commit harm to anyone else meaning that getting rid of privacy does not eliminate potential for harm but actually create more potential for it.

Another important argument for privacy is its correlation with free will. you may have heard that taking away your privacy does not affect your free will since you will still be free to do what ever you want but just been monitored. But one thing that is worth noting is that there are multiple ways of elimination your free will. And that is one thing that this argument does not covers. Your free will can be controlled not just directly but also indirectly. What this means is that you could be influenced in subconsciously giving away your free will. The ability to manipulate you by using all types of conviction methods into giving away your freedom can only be achieved by having lots of information about you and the only way to have lots of information about you is by getting rid of your privacy. What this means is that by taking away your privacy, you are exposing as much information about yourself as possible. That information could then be used to influence your decision making meaning that the choice you make will not be based on your individual free will anymore. Or in other words, people could manipulate you into making whatever choices they want you to make. And thus you will not have any free will in such situation.

But perhaps the most important thing to discuss is why privacy came to be in the first place. And the reason of course been intimacy. Another thing you may have heard many times over is that humans are social creatures and that is "for the most part" true. And this could sound ironic to people but it is for this very same reason that humans craved privacy. And it could be comprehensible for people to say that it seems odd that people who are social creatures will want privacy. But the truth is that there are some things that you do in private that you will never do in public not necessarily because they are bad things but because of your public image, meaning that what others think or say about you is important to you. So you will always want to care about what the public things about you. Which is why you will want intimacy to make sure that somethings that you do is not view by the public and thus does not effect your public image. That is really what is meant by been a social being. It means that you care and value the opinion and views of the wider society when it comes to your public image.

And in case you haven't though about it already, it also means that most people that don't value their privacy are most likely to not be social. They will not care about what is done in private and what is done in public and could do anything anywhere since what others thinks of them is irrelevant to them. Those are not exactly all anti-social people but most. And this is the real reason why humans seek privacy because they are for the most part social creatures. So any idea that anyone that seeks for privacy is a potential danger is partially inconsistent. Nor matter your view on privacy because everyone has one, one thing that is important to know is that it has been part of our existence since the down of humanity. Meaning that getting rid of it will definitely create other endeavors we will have to deal with.