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1. pembro+eb[view] [source] 2023-11-02 11:52:38
>>pbrw+(OP)
Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs.

The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries).

The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger at the "evil American tech companies" while simultaneously doing the opposite when it comes to privacy from government...which is the real threat.

I could point to many instances of this but the easiest one is the EU commission currently pushing a ban on encryption.

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2. squigz+fc[view] [source] 2023-11-02 11:57:34
>>pembro+eb
Can you elaborate on how a government can 'ruin your life', while a company can't?

This might be hard to grok, but we can actually be aware of both threats without minimizing the seriousness of either.

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3. pembro+Xe[view] [source] 2023-11-02 12:13:45
>>squigz+fc
Governments have a monopoly on violence. And as history has proven (especially in the EU), they tend to use it.

Even in good times, in countries with mostly balanced institutions, the government can lock you up in prison and throw away the key if you piss off the wrong people.

On the other hand, I can assure you the only thing Unilever is aspiring to do is get you to buy more toilet bowl cleaner.

And I know the rebuttal will be..."but stupid people (not me of course) will get duped into buying more toilet bowl cleaner than they actually need!"

While that is indeed a huge burden of responsibility to place upon all the people you think are less intelligent than you, I think they will be okay.

As history has shown, the real risk is the government telling me exactly how much toilet bowl cleaner I get to use.

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4. ndrisc+1t[view] [source] 2023-11-02 13:32:31
>>pembro+Xe
Others have addressed the surveillance issue plenty (but in case it's still not clear, if your data is for sale commercially, then your government will buy it), but I think it's important to also stress the insidiousness of repeated mass consumer propaganda, given your toilet bowl cleaner example.

Consider Oreo O's: a breakfast "food" with 11.5 g sugar and 1.3 g protein. Allegedly (according to the Wikipedia article), it was a very successful "food" and had approval from parents.

Now, if you ask someone whether it's appropriate to give your child a pile of sugar or cookies for breakfast, they'll probably tell you no, that's neglect. But somehow people have gotten it into their heads that products from Post or General Mills are acceptable, and weirdly enough now almost half of Americans are obese, and over 10% are diabetic, and how this could have come to be is a total mystery.

How did people come to the conclusion that something with marshmallows or cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite is appropriate to give your children every day? Or cans/bottles of sugar water? Something tells me the decades of endless advertising helped normalize it.

Look at the website for boxtops for education: big bold letters "YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR SCHOOLS" (by giving your child sugar for breakfast). You're making a difference! You're a good person! This kind of propaganda is profoundly evil, and this is without targeting messaging to individuals.

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5. JAlexo+Bj1[view] [source] 2023-11-02 16:59:23
>>ndrisc+1t
You're missing an important point in your example - the reason why high sugar cereals were so successful was because of government interventions (buying up grain supplies, unreasonably propping up certain crops, etc)

The utter failures of governments to provide any meaningful guidance, or intentionally boosting certain product consumption.

We can have an argument on how effective that propaganda was, but in the end governments in EU and US make bad food much more available than traditional diets.

We can all rant about how evil corporations are for putting HFCS into their products in the US, but it's disingenuous to disregard the fact that US government spends billions on propping up corn production that makes HFCS more economically viable.

In the end you still choose to buy sugary cereals, but if you are in poverty - you're left without a choice when it comes to calorie sources, because of government interventions.

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6. LargoL+3l2[view] [source] 2023-11-02 21:32:33
>>JAlexo+Bj1
Governments do this on behalf of corporations. Ever heard of lobbying, revolving door effect, regulatory capture and so on?

Maybe watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation_(2003_film) and it's sequel from 2020 (linked from there) for starters?

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