When everybody has dirt on everybody else, it gets a whole lot harder to shame someone.
Not really. The bounds of what we know about eachother's behavior would just widen from "the things everyone shares about themselves" to "the things everyone actually does." There would still be people who's behavior falls within 1 standard deviation of the average/default/acceptable everyman. And they'll still shame everyone who does not.
It also puts a whole lot of glue onto the current social structures. Imagine in a society intolerant of homosexuality with no privacy. Unless the dictator and most of his inner circle are gay, the fact everyone has dirt on everyone doesn't stop him from killing all the gays. When people can't express their secret orientation to eachother in private, there is no way for gradual acceptance to be a thing.
Sure it's a contrived example, but someone already wrote about these problems [1] more clearly than I can in a quick break form work.
You could argue that this wouldn't be a problem in some societies. Even if we posit that it could work under some conditions, the properties of necessary for it to work are not guaranteed by the abolition of privacy. And they sure as hell don't exist anywhere in the world today.
Not really. The bounds of what we know about eachother's behavior would just widen from "the things everyone shares about themselves" to "the things everyone actually does." There would still be people who's behavior falls within 1 standard deviation of the average/default/acceptable everyman. And they'll still shame everyone who does not.
It also puts a whole lot of glue onto the current social structures. Imagine in a society intolerant of homosexuality with no privacy. Unless the dictator and most of his inner circle are gay, the fact everyone has dirt on everyone doesn't stop him from killing all the gays. When people can't express their secret orientation to eachother in private, there is no way for gradual acceptance to be a thing.
Sure it's a contrived example, but someone already wrote about these problems [1] more clearly than I can in a quick break form work.
You could argue that this wouldn't be a problem in some societies. Even if we posit that it could work under some conditions, the properties of necessary for it to work are not guaranteed by the abolition of privacy. And they sure as hell don't exist anywhere in the world today.
[1] http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-h...