mutatismutandis

Fair. I was just trying to take the problem to the hypothetical edge of having no privacy at all; to a case where you do not even enough privacy to share a thought without fear of retribution. I was also trying to align the idea with their understanding of freedom of speech, they do agree freedom of speech is ok, so if you can tie speech into thought and then also into privacy, maybe there would be a logical connection that allows them to understand the need for privacy as a type of freedom.

The situation is very complex because privacy has been implicit in our daily lives for so long, it's really difficult to map out the ways it would reduce our personal freedom. If we want to remove privacy, then we need to make it impossible for anyone to keep anything private from anyone else.

If privacy isn't important; then we should all live in proverbial glass houses where everyone can see everyone else's lives. Why should we trust the government with that power, why not everyone?

I understand that you believe that privacy is hiding the truth. It appears that you believe that the only reason someone would hide any information is because it only allows one to lie. Thus you conclude that since lying is bad, privacy is also bad because it promotes lying. If the above chain of reasoning is accurate, then let's do a thought experiment. What if you personally hold a belief that is contrary to public opinion, in fact, let's say it's a crime to believe this, but you still believe it? And for some reason you decided to make mention of it to someone and you are outed for holding a belief. Do you think that even though you disagree with society at large, you should be punished for that belief? Who is correct in this scenario? You? The people? ... privacy isn't just about lies, it's about being able to have space to have thoughts and develop concepts that may not be ready for public consumption. It's about freedom to think about concepts or beliefs without State retribution for not holding the party line. It's not about withholding truth. It's about being able to control the information that you personally generate without fear of judgement from external parties.

does anyone know why he'd have one of these: http://www.kurims.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~motizuki/anpi-kakunin-jouho...

on his site?

I think this is great; I know for a fact that when I try to describe a series of symptoms to my doctor he will be typing away, and I think there's a lot of what I'm saying that gets lost going from the ears to the fingers. I also think, having both patient and doctor "on the same side" makes it seem more like a team effort and empowers people to take more of an active role in their health.

This is awesome, but I wish this was searchable...

well, I'm hosed.