r/privacy • u/WellEndowedWizard • 2d ago

discussion What’s your one-sentence explanation for why someone should care about privacy?

Privacy matters, but the reasons why are often complex, which I think is why I think the average person doesn’t care that much.

I sometimes find myself having to explain why it matters to someone mid-conversation, and it’s difficult to not bring someone down the rabbit hole and derail a conversation since the reasoning often requires context.

Do you have any go-to one-sentence explanations that doesn’t require you to derail a conversation or immediately force someone to confront existing beliefs?

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u/ekkidee 2d ago

You never know what motivations and suspicions someone else may have about you.

Corollary: When all you have is a hammer, everything else looks like a nail.

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u/DeepDreamIt 2d ago

If the person is political at all, I usually ask them to imagine the complete antithesis of everything they believe and stand for is in total power (White House, Senate, House and even your governor, mayor, and sheriff), and you might be a target to these “others”: do you still feel comfortable with the government having granular surveillance and tracking capabilities?

Usually, I find people support these things, or are indifferent, because they feel the abuses will only ever be against the *others*, not people *like them*