This comment at Slashdot articulated a sense of things I’ve had for a while but have been uncertain of and unable to express:

The less privacy we have, the less we have to worry about our privacy. That sounds flip, and along the lines of “if you have nothing to hide…” but it isn’t.

We want privacy primarly due to shame.

We have shame because we wear masks almost 100% of the time.

We wear masks don’t want people to realize who we ‘really are’ either mentally or phyically.

We don’t want people to really know us because we have been convinced to hold ourselves to standards that no one actually meets.

We hold ourselves to these standards because everyone else is wearing masks and while we can tell ourselves that ‘they are just like us’, it’s hard to grasp that cognatively without actual proof.

If there were no privacy, no one could wear a mask. If no one were wearing a mask, we would realize that the standards we hold ourselves to are unrealistic. If we realize the standards we hold ourselves to are unrealisitic, we are freed from shame. If we are freed from shame, we no longer find privacy necessary.

I think I agree with that. And it’s usually trailblazers who don’t care what others think of them (people without shame) who slowly show the world there’s nothing to be ashamed of about [whatever] and make the world a better place to live for all the [whatever] people who do care what others think.

I still live in a world where there are certain things I’d rather my workplace or select others not know, but I’m edging ever closer to living without shame. I wonder if one day the entire world will be that way?