I’m currently reading the book Nothing to Hide by Daniel J. Solove, where he examines the arguments you mention here (about privacy being a societal value, not an individual one) in lots of detail. I recommend it so far! Nothing to Hide (book) - Wikipedia
Co-incidence, me too! Albeit because I think it’d have some useful points for my work, but I always find Solove an interesting read, even if some of his stuff is a bit outdated now and also it tends to be very US-centric. Like, I like his point (I think he made it originally in The Digital Person) about how we shouldn’t understand a society without privacy as akin to 1984, but closer to The Trial. Definitely vibe with that.
I’m only early in that book so far - having to read it on my laptop, which I’m always slower on - but enjoying it very much so far.
I disagree. Thats like saying you want your fast race car to be as quiet and comfortable as your mercedes. The whole concept of privacy is exclusionary. It can’t be mass adopted. You can’t have a society of ghosts.
I kind of see what you’re driving at, but I disagree. A desire for better has always been behind any kind of technological or social progress - the Model T was fine, but we wanted cars to be faster or more efficient or quieter or more comfortable, so we innovated and developed and now we have cars that make it look like a bad joke in comparison. There may be physical laws at some point, but we haven’t even begun to butt up against them yet.
More to the point, yes, some kind of interaction is necessary for society, and interaction requires some degree of exposure. Like now, I’m exposing my views to you, which could be viewed as a giving up of some privacy, albeit pretty trivial in this case. But I would suggest that maybe you’re conflating “secrecy” with “privacy”. I would define “privacy” as “having control over that exposure”, while “secrecy” is basically not exposing it in the first place. Let’s say that I’m gay, or some variant of GSM. Me choosing to wear a shirt saying that, or telling people, is not, necessarily, a loss of privacy - I chose to do so, it was entirely within my control (although they might tell other people, which isn’t in my control, which is a weakness of the “control” definition but that’s a bigger topic). But if someone else exposed that fact, that would be a loss of privacy and secrecy.
I see no reason you cannot, in theory, have a private society, but you definitely cannot have a secretive society.