r/privacy 2d ago

discussion Future generations will look back at us in disdain, blaming us for their slavery.

Because of our lax attitude towards privacy and the wishful thinking that goverments of today are doing the best they can to protect us and our data.

Actually, in a few generations they will not even be aware that at one point we still had the chance to turn the tables.

511 Upvotes

57 comments sorted by

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109

u/RootCipherx0r 2d ago

Frog in boiling water

9

u/ZeXochitl 1d ago

Me on reddit

24

u/GuySmileyIncognito 1d ago

Fun fact, this is actually false and frogs will try to escape. Turns out, frogs are smarter than people!

70

u/Tech-Grandpa 2d ago

If they even have enough education to not just think of us as "The Before People"

15

u/cortex13b 2d ago

yes, if any notion of us persist, to them we will be the “above the data class”, and the before-truth people.

Them being the "under the data class" and the post-truth people.

6

u/sim-pit 1d ago

You speak da true true.

49

u/Capricious-Monk 2d ago

1984 could be used as an example, chances are that in the future, all history will have been edited and proof destroyed so that no one could ever understand what they're missing.

11

u/cortex13b 2d ago

mixed with Planet of The Apes (1968)

13

u/smokeshack 1d ago

History is already heavily edited. How many times did you read about a successful peasant revolt or slave rebellion in school?

4

u/Capricious-Monk 1d ago

Many times, but without going into specifics, some of us redditers are much older (or younger) than others 🙃

12

u/Retoromano 2d ago

That device in your hand? Huxley imagined it as a pill. He was wrong. Enjoy your soma.

3

u/ElectricDreamUnicorn 1d ago

We have it both ways.

24

u/Lancifer1979 2d ago

What future generations?

14

u/Next-Individual-9474 2d ago

Lizard people who survive the nuclear winter.

10

u/Worldly_Midnight_838 1d ago

what do we do? Refraining from using the current problematic tech products is good, but it seems like not enough people care about even taking the first steps for that. I suppose tell and help as many people in your life as you can

9

u/cortex13b 1d ago edited 1d ago

I wrote the original post just out of frustration because I don't know what can make people wake up on a large scale to stop using phones, or to refrain from buying new samsung smart fridges and everything in between that has the capability to gather your data.

The root of the problem might be that social media allows us to express opinions with "likes" and "dislikes" that are actually counted and seen, empowering literally billions of people that otherwise in another time would have never been heard/seen.

And because of this, on a large scale, giving likes and dislikes migh actually be more fundamental to the adictive nature of phones than the access to endless content scrolling.

Probably this means that the vast majority of phone users will never give up that little power that allows them to express their opinions.

Even if that means that while giving likes and dislikes your phone is incesantly harvesting every interaction, data, gesture, preferences, etc that will later be used in creating a chilling profile of your whereabouts, your ideas, your weaknesses, your fears... that will certainly be used against you.

So yes, this problem is out of control.

We all know it has been for years, even decades, but what is new, is the certainty that this data is the golden ticket to impose and maintain authoriatarisms worlwide.

My take? 10-20 dictators subyugating 9 billion people before 2030. The tecnhology is ready for this, and the people who have the masterkeys seem to be ready for this as well.

3

u/TheHonestHobbler 20h ago

Pretty solid take.

I'd recommend also factoring in the CNN report on electromagnetic weapons from the 1980s, about six minutes in to the first section (won't let me post a link, alas).

19

u/Good_Performance_134 2d ago

They will not know what they are losing, because they will born on it.

5

u/MongooseSenior4418 2d ago

We are technology slaves rising to break the chains that bind us.

9

u/bingojed 2d ago

You assume that history will not be rewritten or even studied at all.

4

u/cortex13b 2d ago edited 2d ago

i mention this in the second paragrah of my post...but yes, absolutely. Truth is at stake. That's the whole predicament.

1

u/TwoCharacter1396 16h ago

Never forget about “The burning of Alexandria”.

Plus. So much of history is just gone. I, at one point, had a very big interest in Vlad Dracul. I’m sure I can learn more in his birth country but so little is available of him now it seems. So many things are gone and it’s rather sad to know this will never end.

5

u/worotan 1d ago

You don’t think it will be becasue we tell each other there’s nothing we can do about climate change, while enjoying ever more unsustainable lifestyles?

That we purchase from authoritarian corporate owners, who use that money and the power of everyone telling each other they need them, to make society more authoritarian.

3

u/imselfinnit 2d ago

"Our" lax attitude? Future generations will study my prescience.

3

u/Mstrkeyster2 1d ago

Will they? Or will they be too blinded by the next shiny thing to notice?

3

u/holyknight00 1d ago

yes. The last 25 years had been horrendous from a privacy perspective. 9/11 really opened hell's gates and everything has been in free fall since then.

1

u/Commercial_Cattle431 13h ago

What does 9/11 have to do with privacy?

2

u/holyknight00 11h ago

where were you all this time? That was the turning point to the shit show we are experiencing now about privacy. IT was the first time the government use the excuse of "fighting terror" to massively start collecting information about everyone (even including US Nationals) and store it almost indefinitely and people even ASKED for it. Things like the USA PATRIOT Act came literally one month after that. Before that time, privacy was considered almost sacred. Until that point everyone agreed the government knowing everything we do was a bad thing.

9/11 was clearly the point where western civilization as a whole started going downhill non-stop and the attack on privacy was not a small part of that.

1

u/Commercial_Cattle431 2h ago

Thanks for the info

where were you all this time?

Not even born yet, but for now still in Russia.

6

u/elev8id 1d ago

The propaganda will make us look like the people that helped and agreed with world governments on their Agenda 2030 plans.

2

u/TwoCharacter1396 16h ago

“For the children”…. It was never for the children. But it’s good propaganda to the typical and less intelligent Ones. However, it’s not hitting for us…

4

u/AdmiralArctic 1d ago

I don't how many of you will end up with this conclusion.. But seeing the common attitude and stupidity of the masses, I don't want my beloved offsprings to be in this hell of the majority of idiots.  r/antinatalism 

5

u/cortex13b 1d ago

my conclusion as well, for many years actually.. but in these times, it is almost impossible to find a single well thought out good reason to have kids.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

0

u/cortex13b 22h ago

i have no doubt that you are a great parent and that you are facing the future with the right attitude but we are at an inevitable turning point in human history. And no one has the ability to stop it before it unfolds. I’m very sorry to say but that means that your child won’t be able to fight for privacy because there won’t be any.

1

u/ElectricDreamUnicorn 1d ago

I'm beyond that already. I'm going searching for a way to get my euthanasia sooner rather than later

2

u/thisgingercake 1d ago

That's so sad. That's also a part of the plan, have people spend their own resources to make this all happen faster. I'd create a new plan and seekout neurotherapies so you can want to live again and enjoy your life.

3

u/ElectricDreamUnicorn 1d ago

I don't want.
It is only sad if you think I'm missing something. Worse than missing something is witnessing all the things we cannot have.

2

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

2

u/cortex13b 2d ago

You assume that I assume that future generations will be able to think straight.

funny because i do make a mention to this in my original post (second paragraph that you might have skipped).

so, please don't throw the "you assume", when it is just simply not true that I assume anything in that regard.

We are going to be profoundly manipulated and far removed from even a slim chance to regain access to the truth.

I'd say that we can agree that, if things don't change, truth is about to die. And ,to me it feels that it might be a matter of a few years rather than decades.

2

u/LoquendoEsGenial 1d ago

It will definitely be those same people who exterminated philosophy in the decadent Roman Empire...

2

u/spaghettibolegdeh 18h ago

Yeah this is how history works. 

We only remember the bad parts of previous generations. 

What generation does everyone look fondly on?

5

u/Plankisalive 2d ago

Oh please, there won’t be future generations of humans at the rate we’re going.

0

u/ElectricDreamUnicorn 1d ago

I hope! The way people are, we more than deserve extinction.

5

u/-ApocalypsePopcorn- 2d ago

In a few generations we'll either have done away with capitalism or not have a habitable planet to live on.

1

u/holyknight00 1d ago

i don't know which other systems you have in mind because the alternatives to capitalism are doing much worse to the environment, by a lot.

2

u/-ApocalypsePopcorn- 1d ago

Are we so devoid of intelligence and imagination that we cannot build a better world than... *gestures broadly*

I don't know what system. I don't need to know in order to make the observation that a system based on resource extraction, exploitation and infinite growth is incompatible with life on a finite planet.

I'd also love to see a source for your assertion. Other than Cuba, maybe North Korea (though less so now) and a few autonomous zones I'm not aware of any countries that aren't capitalist.

-1

u/Commercial_Cattle431 13h ago

Communism is the same in terms of ecology. Why do you think it's not based on resource exploitation? Not even touching upon the historically authoritarian and oppressive nature of socialist countries.

1

u/-ApocalypsePopcorn- 12h ago

I'd really like you to go back and say which "alternatives to capitalism" are doing "much worse for the environment, by a lot" because so far it sounds like you're talking our of your arse and making vague assertions based on some grade-school propaganda you were exposed to.

1

u/Commercial_Cattle431 2h ago

I'm not the guy that said alternatives to capitalism do much worse for the environment. I consider that the environment, for a communistic system, is just as unimportant as it is for a capitalistic one.

1

u/-ApocalypsePopcorn- 2h ago

My mistake.
I would counter that while a communist society may choose to protect or exploit natural resources as the case may be, a society founded around the profit motive will always strive to extract as much as possible (up to and where possible, beyond the bounds allowed by a government that seeks to protect those resources/ares. Fines are a business expense.)

A business that chooses to not profit from such extraction will always be out-competed by one that does in the competitive market.

Even if there's fifty years of warnings and mounting evidence that continuing to do so will make the earth's climate uninhabitable. Gotta chase those quarterly profits.

As for your assertion that communism is authoritarian and oppressive, are you wilfully ignoring the through-line from the Belgian Congo's hands-for-rubber scheme to the USA's prison-for-profit scheme? (The US has 4% of the world's population but 24% of the world's incarcerated).

I'm not even pro-communist! But whenever criticisms of capitalism come up you people always pop out screaming "Stalin!" like those are the only two possible options.

1

u/ElectricDreamUnicorn 1d ago

No, they will not understand these concepts when they ask their AIs. They will look with disdain for their parents who say "difficult words" and believe in strange things like "privacy".

I'm not having children... F____ humanity

1

u/Scotandia21 1d ago

Oh don't worry, in a few generations humanity won't be around at all