[iDC] Privacy > Anonymity

[Luis Nunez]

I really enjoyed the thoughts on privacy, anonymity, agency and
post-individualism.

It helped clarify something for me – privacy is better than anonymity. 
It’s better because it leaves just enough room for the individual so
that we create a collective space that isn’t entirely psychotic.  Just
yesterday, I openly resolved myself to an existence in which my ISP
sells my browser history to online ad networks so that they can target
me (and by extension users like me) with messaging their clients are
desperate for me to see.

I mean… if it meant so much to them, it couldn’t hurt to glance at an ad
tailored especially for me while trolling nytimes.com.

But no more!

I take it back.  I rather not be atomized then clumped back together
with a bunch of other young males in my geo-vicinity, surfing the same
cross section of the Internet.

I no longer think that it's such a great idea to make a pattern out of
the noise just because you can.  I mean, can there be something like the
tyranny of suggestion algorithms?

Also, would my discomfort - but inevitable satisfaction - with “Netflix
Recommends” be post-neo-luddism?

-Lu