I think privacy is important for the west, but through interactions I’ve had with mostly Chinese people on this topic as well as visiting China and Taiwan, I think it’s very interesting how differently we view things.
Taiwan is much more like the west in this regard, and they pretty regularly hold protests and things like that. China is a different story, and they have mass surveillance and the people are happy to have it.
I believe that people in China are for the most part genuinely okay with mass surveillance and think it’s a good idea. One of the big ideological differences between east and west is that we value individualism over everything, and they value social harmony above everything. They would much rather give up privacy if that means that everyone in their community can feel safer. We feel strongly tied to privacy because we believe it’s necessary for true individualism.
For example, in China the crime rate is incredibly low. You can use your smartphone to hold your place on public transport or at a cafe, and people do this regularly because there is zero worry that it will be stolen. If someone does steal it, they’re very quickly caught. They’re happy to not have to worry about drug addicts wandering the streets, or even really have the possibility of encountering illicit drugs because they believe (and probably rightly so) that they destroy families and harm society. There’s many concrete benefits to mass surveillance, but they come at the cost of individualism.
Basically, we want the freedom and the means to do things that our government doesn’t necessarily approve of. For the west, I agree with this and I think it’s necessary because of how diverse we are. But, as we become more culturally homogeneous, the benefits of mass surveillance come with less and less of a cost.
It’s a tricky issue and there’s no one solution, it really depends on culture and context in my opinion. For the west in 2025,I think privacy is still very important and individualism is still highly valued, but I do wonder if our kids and their kids will share that sentiment or if we’ll see a shift as we become further homogenized.
I think a lot of young people already have the attitude of “They’re already tracking everything so I don’t care” which leads to the exact same conclusions as “I have nothing to hide so I don’t care”.
I think privacy is important for the west, but through interactions I’ve had with mostly Chinese people on this topic as well as visiting China and Taiwan, I think it’s very interesting how differently we view things.
Taiwan is much more like the west in this regard, and they pretty regularly hold protests and things like that. China is a different story, and they have mass surveillance and the people are happy to have it.
I believe that people in China are for the most part genuinely okay with mass surveillance and think it’s a good idea. One of the big ideological differences between east and west is that we value individualism over everything, and they value social harmony above everything. They would much rather give up privacy if that means that everyone in their community can feel safer. We feel strongly tied to privacy because we believe it’s necessary for true individualism.
For example, in China the crime rate is incredibly low. You can use your smartphone to hold your place on public transport or at a cafe, and people do this regularly because there is zero worry that it will be stolen. If someone does steal it, they’re very quickly caught. They’re happy to not have to worry about drug addicts wandering the streets, or even really have the possibility of encountering illicit drugs because they believe (and probably rightly so) that they destroy families and harm society. There’s many concrete benefits to mass surveillance, but they come at the cost of individualism.
Basically, we want the freedom and the means to do things that our government doesn’t necessarily approve of. For the west, I agree with this and I think it’s necessary because of how diverse we are. But, as we become more culturally homogeneous, the benefits of mass surveillance come with less and less of a cost.
It’s a tricky issue and there’s no one solution, it really depends on culture and context in my opinion. For the west in 2025,I think privacy is still very important and individualism is still highly valued, but I do wonder if our kids and their kids will share that sentiment or if we’ll see a shift as we become further homogenized.
I think a lot of young people already have the attitude of “They’re already tracking everything so I don’t care” which leads to the exact same conclusions as “I have nothing to hide so I don’t care”.