What's a reasonable person? Plenty of "reasonable" people drink Coke every day because the system indoctrinates otherwise rational people into believing that sugar isn't a poison comparable to alcohol. One of my friends, who is an attorney, still thinks that snack foods devoid of fat but loaded with sugar are somehow healthier. Speculating how a rational person would respond ideally isn't very useful in this situation because most people, including those who are well educated, are influenced heavily by their environment and, more specifically, peers and authority.
When you have Zuckerberg and journalists touting the end of privacy as being a good thing(there are plenty of articles and quotes from 10 years ago reflecting this sentiment), as well as surveillance gradually integrating into people's lives through convenience, you bet that most people are going to shrug their shoulders at privacy. Does the fact that people comply with invasion of privacy mean that the issue doesn't matter? Maybe it does if you don't think that the behavior of the masses can be manufactured.
I do agree with you that the current media outrage against social media, Silicon Valley, etc., is essentially the same kind of consent-manufacturing as when they were telling us that privacy is gone and that we should accept Facebook as the lesser evil because it "makes us more connected". I happen to agree with the current manufactured outrage, but I don't agree with the intent behind it. (which I suspect has to do with the old-guard media finally realizing that it's dying and it doesn't like the fact that social media has taken their audience and, hence, their money)
Otherwise reasonable people can be convinced to do unreasonable things by companies with an agenda, that’s not the question. Facebook has done a great job convincing people to irrationally give the company all their data.
The question is do you combat that with education or with regulation? Personally I think the government’s track record with this kind of regulation is terrible, with the possible exception of cigarettes. In the US marijuana is still a schedule one drug right up there with opioids, which makes zero sense when you look at the risk profile of each drug.
Public education is extremely difficult, for example the Just Say No campaign fell mostly flat, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Cigarette usage is down these days due to both increased regulations and increased public awareness of the risks.
>Does the fact that people comply with invasion of privacy mean that the issue doesn't matter? Maybe it does if you don't think that the behavior of the masses can be manufactured.
By that same token, convincing people to be either pro-privacy or ambivalent to privacy is manufactured behavior, isn't it? If people vote against their interest, then who are we to force them one way or the other? Its hard to say without sounding harsh, but at some point, you have to draw the line on personal responsibility, and stop coddling people. Also, privacy is a relatively modern concept. When cities and towns were small, everyone got into everyone's business. Certainly, you can favor one position over the other because of your belief that it would lead to a better society.
There are lots of things here that reasonable people can discuss and agree or disagree on.
Way to pick out the least important sentence in that well-crafted response and attack it for no reason.
Alcohol can indeed be classified as a poison. When someone gets their stomach pumped after drinking too much, they're being treated for alcohol poisoning.
I'm not sure what your point is with that graph. Is it that 24 million Americans drink excessive amounts of alcohol and it's not a problem because they're still alive? Please forgive me if I misunderstand.
This is getting off-topic, but just because the human body is well capable of expelling consumed alcohol doesn't mean that it won't suffer from other problems in the future like fatty liver disease(which is also caused by chronic sugar consumption, btw).
What's a reasonable person? Plenty of "reasonable" people drink Coke every day because the system indoctrinates otherwise rational people into believing that sugar isn't a poison comparable to alcohol. One of my friends, who is an attorney, still thinks that snack foods devoid of fat but loaded with sugar are somehow healthier. Speculating how a rational person would respond ideally isn't very useful in this situation because most people, including those who are well educated, are influenced heavily by their environment and, more specifically, peers and authority.
When you have Zuckerberg and journalists touting the end of privacy as being a good thing(there are plenty of articles and quotes from 10 years ago reflecting this sentiment), as well as surveillance gradually integrating into people's lives through convenience, you bet that most people are going to shrug their shoulders at privacy. Does the fact that people comply with invasion of privacy mean that the issue doesn't matter? Maybe it does if you don't think that the behavior of the masses can be manufactured.
I do agree with you that the current media outrage against social media, Silicon Valley, etc., is essentially the same kind of consent-manufacturing as when they were telling us that privacy is gone and that we should accept Facebook as the lesser evil because it "makes us more connected". I happen to agree with the current manufactured outrage, but I don't agree with the intent behind it. (which I suspect has to do with the old-guard media finally realizing that it's dying and it doesn't like the fact that social media has taken their audience and, hence, their money)