Sept. 3, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
11:06
5623 The Price of Privacy!
In this lecture, Stefan Molyneux examines the complex interplay between individual privacy rights and societal expectations. He raises important questions about how privacy concerns manifest, particularly in situations like mandatory checks for potential child abuse, while advocating for a balance between personal privacy and societal needs. Molyneux employs relatable analogies to depict how privacy affects employment and personal relationships, illustrating the risks of excessive privacy on opportunities and trust. He discusses how individuals often trade privacy for convenience in everyday interactions, emphasizing the economic repercussions tied to privacy choices in various industries. Ultimately, Molyneux urges a thoughtful approach to privacy, urging listeners to reflect on the long-term effects of their choices on social and professional dynamics.GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND AUDIOBOOK!https://peacefulparenting.com/Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
So, the question of privacy came up in the live stream.
I just wanted to do a wee bit of a follow-up on that one, lad.
And the question of privacy, people said, well, in your novel, I didn't like the fact that
You had all of this invasion of privacy that it was mandatory to get these scans for your kids to find out if they were abused and so on.
And people just, people didn't like the privacy.
Now I get, I get the privacy thing.
Of course, right?
Of course.
But I think it's also really important to not go too far in that direction, which is sort of a pointless thing to say.
Let me sort of frame that.
It's like, you're, you're over-exaggerating.
It's like, well, that's kind of by definition, right?
So I want you to picture you're a hiring manager and someone wants a job.
And let's say it's some high level job requires a lot of skill, education, experience, expertise, and
The person comes in and you say, can I see your resume?
And they hand you a blank sheet of paper or a sheet of paper with everything blacked out, right?
Well, then you would say, well, no, I can see your education and your references and your experience and all kinds of stuff, right?
And if the person says, no, I'm going to keep that information private.
That's fine.
Then the person has exercised their right to privacy, but they won't get the job.
If you meet a woman and you're both 35, let's say, you meet a woman, you think she's nice and smart, funny, cute, or whatever, and you talk with her, and you say, hey, what's your name?
And she says, nope, that's private.
Again, she has the perfect right to stay private.
People do not need to, they don't have a right
For you to tell them your name.
So she's perfectly private.
However, it would probably be wise to not have a second date, right?
A little too private, right?
Or if you say, tell me a little bit about your life.
Oh, my name is Lacey.
Okay.
Lacey.
Nice to meet you.
Tell me a little bit about your life.
No, that's private.
If you really, really want to know if we have a good relationship five years after we married, I will tell you.
I will put it in a vault and you will get the combo five years after we married.
Well, that might be a little bit too much privacy, wouldn't it?
On the other hand, if you said to a woman
Yes, Lacey, nice to meet you.
It'd be great if I could install a webcam in your shower.
I'm like, okay, but that's private, right?
So, so that's, that's too much.
Even if you're married, don't install a webcam in the woman's shower, right?
That is some creepy Bates Motel owner.
So privacy is interesting.
We give up privacy a lot in order to function in the world.
We give websites our credit card information, right?
And that's so we can have the convenience of buying things without mailing a check.
If we mail the check, we wouldn't have to give out our credit card information.
But we prefer the convenience of not having to mail a check.
They prefer the convenience of not having to check and having to go cash it and verify it and then ship the stuff off as well and all that, right?
Having the check bounce, all that kind of stuff.
So we give up privacy for convenience and economic efficiency all the time.
I mean, imagine if there's some kid and it's his birthday.
He's a new kid at school.
It's his birthday.
And he says, I really want to have a birthday party.
And you say, sounds great.
Where is it?
No, I'm not going to tell you.
I'm not going to tell you.
I'm not going to tell you my address.
Because that's private.
So I think we sort of understand, right?
So giving up privacy is kind of essential to be able to function in life and society.
People who say, this is Aristotelian mean, right?
It's a bell curve.
So people who say far too little about themselves, right?
So if you meet a woman and
She has, she's 40 or whatever, and you say, can you tell me a little bit about your dating history?
And she will say, no, no, I will not tell you anything about my dating history.
Again, she's perfectly free to not tell you anything about her dating history, right?
Perfectly free to not say a thing.
And you're perfectly free to make a decision based on that.
So another thing is that if you are buying a house and the price has dropped recently, well, that's private information, right?
So maybe that for you, right?
And if you were to say, has the price changed, they could say the real estate agent or the owners could say, well, I'm not telling you that.
I'm not telling you whether the price has changed or not.
Okay.
And that's, then they may never publish it.
They may have just kept it completely private or something like that.
And it's like, okay, well, that's totally fine.
You can keep your, whether you pay your bills or not, whether you have outstanding loans, your credit score and so on, you could, in a free society, you could opt out of all of that, of course, and all that would happen is that you would end up having to pay more for borrowing money because people wouldn't have much of an example of whether you paid your bills back or not.
So, you're free, of course, to be as private as you want in a free society.
However, you have to accept that people will assume that you are keeping private in some areas because the information is bad.
So, if you're dating a woman, and with the intent of getting married, she's a young woman, and she's a virgin, she will probably not keep that to herself, right?
She will say, I've never had sex before, I'm a virgin.
And not any of this cheaty, cheaty stuff, but like, genuinely not had sex before, right?
Okay, so, whereas if a woman refuses, let me just have to do this exercise, right?
If a woman refuses to tell you anything about her sexual history,
Right?
What do you assume?
See, remember, freedom is not freedom from consequences.
You are perfectly free to not tell anyone about your job history.
But that means that you won't get hired for anything but entry-level jobs.
You know, maybe you've got, you want to get a job as a singer.
Well, they're going to ask you to do an audition.
You say, well, no, no, no.
I want to keep my singing voice private.
It's like, okay, then you won't get hired.
It's a singer, right?
You understand, right?
So remember a free freedom is fine.
But you are not free to control the contents of other people's minds, right?
You are not free to control the contents of other people's minds, which means that you are not free to escape the consequences of suspicious privacy.
I read, I read an internet article just out of curiosity many years ago called How to Disappear.
You know, and it was like, you know, pay as much cash as possible.
Don't be ostentatious.
Don't play loud music.
Don't do anything that draws attention to you.
Don't have a loud car.
Don't have a flashy car.
Don't dress in a flashy way.
Like all the things about like how to sort of blend in and fade into some man in a gray flannel suit NPC background.
It was fun.
You can do that.
Don't ask detailed questions.
Don't get to know people that well.
Like if you were, I don't know, on the run from the law or something, right?
And you really, really wanted to disappear.
I was just, I thought it was, I thought it was interesting.
I wasn't having any plans, but I thought it was interesting to read.
I've always been sort of curious about that kind of stuff.
What's life like on the lam?
I don't mean like mint sauce, but like on the run.
So you are free to be as private as you want.
So, of course, in a free society, no one's going to force you to have a non-invasive, non-painful brain scan of your child to look for child abuse.
But, given that the economic advantages of doing that and having a healthy, happy child are so high, saying, I'm not going to have my child checked for child abuse, I'm not going to have my child checked for the effects of child abuse, how many people are going to say,
That's really good.
You have nothing but good motives about that.
You have nothing but wonderful, warm-hearted, good motives about all of that.
Well, I think most people would say that if you don't want your child checked for symptoms of child abuse, that odds are you're abusing your child.
Right?
Right.
If someone says, no, I'm not a smoker for some insurance, right?
Health insurance or life insurance.
And someone says, no, I'm not a smoker.
And then the insurance company says, well, we got to, you know, take a swab in your mouth and look for presence of nicotine.
And they say, no, that's invasive.
Well, it's just spit, right?
You can spit in a cup or I don't know, whatever, right?
Or maybe even if they have to draw blood or whatever, right?
So if you say, I'm not a smoker, but you won't allow any verification of it, then they will simply say, well, okay, you're perfectly free to not spit into a cup and have us look for signs of nicotine.
But if you don't give us that spit to check for nicotine, then we're going to assume that you're, we're going to have to put you down as a smoker.
Like it perfectly, but there are consequences.
A woman's perfectly free to tell you nothing about her dating or sexual history or anything about her life, but odds are you're probably not going to want to date her.
You're perfectly free to hide everything about your work history, but you're not going to get jobs that require particular work history and education.
You never have to tell anyone where you got educated, but if you got a good education and don't tell anyone, they will not assume that you have a good education.
They will assume that you don't.
Right?
So you are free to hide whatever you want, but there are consequences to that hiding, right?
You can hide anything you want, right?
If a woman is on a date and she's been on a couple of dates with you and you say, Oh, let's go back to your place.
And she says, I'm never going to tell you where I live.
Never going to tell you where I live.
Would you feel comfortable with that?
Well, she's exercising privacy.
So again, it's all about choices and consequences.
You can keep things private.
That's perfectly a prerogative, but you cannot control how other people will perceive you keeping things private.
And that's the important thing.
So freedom for you is freedom for other people.
You are free to keep anything you want private.
Other people are free to infer as much negative stuff as they want from that reality.
So just remember that you can anything you want, but you also cannot control how other people perceive.
Whatever it is that you're doing.
So I hope that makes sense.
And of course, I appreciate your time, care, attention and thoughtfulness.
