Its not even defeatism, its willingly sacrificing themselves to the machine in hopes it will be merciful!

I don't, in general make this same bargain, and I'm not more than happy to give my data, and thus sacrifice my privacy. However, I have had to reckon, and I think many of those who value privacy must too, with the fact that it isn't inherently valued by everyone, that simply adequately communicating this in a way that's better understood won't translate to people suddenly realising what they're giving up. We aren't always simply one great analogy away from changing every person's world view and likely many have come to their view from a place at least as well informed as those of us who jealously guard our privacy. I also have to reckon with the fact that to some extent, my own desire to protect my privacy is at least not fully explainable by logic and rationalism, especially in light of how difficult it is to protect and how easy it is to have unwittingly ceded it. You might call that defeatism, and to simply conclude "well I lost some privacy, so I might as well give it up completely" is accepting defeat, again not something I'm yet prepared to do, but it is also perhaps important to acknowledge and factor present realities in to one's thinking. It might sound defeatist to point out an enemy's big guns pointed toward you from all sides, but it's insane to ignore them. That quote that you've produced, while antithetical to my thinking, really isn't irrational or illogical, and only defeatist if you were onboard with fighting to begin with. If you do not value your privacy and you get something useful in exchange for its sacrifice then it would seem obvious to part with it gladly and it's difficult to offer a rational reason why someone shouldn't. My strongest motivation for protecting it is more idealistic than personal and has more to do with a kind of slippery slope argument and a concern for hypothetical power grabbing and eroding of our rights and autonomy. I like to think that's reason enough, but at least right now, for almost everyone, none of those concerns represent clear nor present dangers and I can't prove it definitely will become such in future though I certainly feel like it has accelerated trends firmly in the direction of my fears.

It's true that they say both things out of comfort.

Though to be completely honest, both statements are not contradictory. They are not necessarily accepting that they do have something worth hiding, but just stating that hiding is too difficult these days anyway. That does not mean (sadly) that they would start doing it were it easier, just that they have even less of a motive to care about it now that hiding is so much harder (to the point of almost being "a myth").

I'm not saying they are right, I'm saying that lack of consistency is not the problem with that attitude. It's not a "shift", just a consistent continuation of a lazy attitude towards comfort.

The 'nothing to hide' argument seems a lot like that 'first they came for socialists and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist...' quote. Sure you have nothing to hide right now, but what happens when something you weren't hiding becomes a target.

It was full of ActiveX controls and Silverlight.

shudders

Bro's from the timeline where Flash became the dominant species.

Depending on what people do, the government already has their fingerprints.

Personally, I work around schools so I had to get a background check and fingerprinted for that. I also am licensed to handle explosives, both federally and at the state level. I been fingerprinted for that. I've gone through TSA for hazmat endorsement on a commercial driver's license. That needed fingerprints and a background check.

Getting fingerprinted to get through airport security is the least of my privacy concerns.

But my threat model isn't the TSA. They aren't a concern of mine, although I do opt out of their facial recognition.

I am concerned with internet surveillance, corporate surveillance, and communication surveillance.

Sorry for devil's advocate here because I agree with you but hypothetically the answer would be verification. ie., Google already has your password, so why would they need to ask you for it when you log in?

This honestly reads like a bad commercial you'd hear on the radio.

Many people don't even distinguish

• Privacy
• Anonymity
• Security

So you know... For example Signal is private but not anonymous as it is tied to you in some way (username, phone number). Security is just not exposing yourself when you haven't allowed someone to have this information / access.

I mean, that is pretty close to the truth. Especially for people whose skill level is at "Firefox sucks at loading HTML sites".

If it wasnt beaten by this, it comes a very close 2nd: "Firefox is trash at loading HTML websites".

You can tell that fucker spends their time gibbering techno waffle bollcoks to old people!

Yes some subreddit is piviting hard captalism recently, giving up their dignity to defend corporations with their life.

e.g. Period tracking apps being used as evidence when prosecuting people who seek abortions