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So "privacy for me but not for thee"? Despite your feelings about the individuals involved (which are fair enough) you do see that's exactly as bad as the "laws for thee but not for me" that we rail against? Balancing these rules is one of those thorny problems we have to address if we ever want things to get better for the majority, but just saying "you're filthy rich so you don't get privacy" isn't the way. Neither is saying that they can hide completely.
You are whining about double standards in a thread about a federal law specifically to protect billionaires' feelings.
I hope I'm not whining. I am saying we should apply the same rules to, and ensure the same rights for, everybody though; not doing so is a large part of how we got here in the first place.
You or I can travel anonymously, or at least without our movements being tracked by the public. If we want to deny that to certain people, or to certain modes of transport, we should have a clear reason why and ensure that it's effects are balanced with it's benefits. As I mentioned in one of my comments above, if we want to hold people accountable when they use certain types of transport, that's fine, and if removing their anonymity is the way we want to do it, that's fine too, but we should apply it all the way down, from planes to cars.
They have the same protection as everyone else all the way up to chartering a flight. They lose privacy for the privilege of owning an entire jet. We also lose privacy for owning certain things, like home ownership is all public record.
But they are sad that their small-scale climate disaster flights are recorded, so they get their own law.
Home ownership is a good example of what I mean about making the rules apply to everyone, and it applies to all types of houses, from the smallest to rhe largest, the most efficient to the least. This is an equitable rule.
Applying the same logic to transportation would mean making all car and bike ownership records public too, which I don't think it a great idea. As I mentioned before, if we want to make the loss of anonymity the penalty for owning a massively polluting vehicle we should apply it to all significantly polluting vehicles including planes, yachts, trucks and maybe even excessively large cars. The problem is where to draw the line.
As far as I can see, the current change just brings plane ownership in line with other vehicles, and so, even though I appreciate being able to track some of these people, without rules applying to other vehicle types, it seems fair to me.
Won't someone think of the billionaires?!
Nevermind the billionaires, they're just being used as scapegoats to distract you. You don't beat an unfair and unjust system by creating a new unfair and unjust system, so the rules need to apply to everyone, no matter how annoying that feels, otherwise, you may find yourself or someone you care about in the out group and suffering because of it.
If we want privacy, everyone gets the same right. If we want free speech, everyone gets free speech (that's the one that I find hardest to reconcile. If we want people to be able to protest or raise issues freely does that alao mean we must grant the same to those who spew hate and seek to twist the minds of others? How do we balance that?).
I don't know what the 'perfect' system looks like, or even if there is such a thing. What we have now isn't it, but saying 'that group over there should have less rights than me' isn't the way either.
If I ever ger a private jet they can track me as much as they want
Would you be ok with people tracking you in your car, or on public transport? At what level does that change for you? Is it just planes that should be publicly trackable, or boats too? What about limousines or jyst big cars?
Don't get me wrong, I think people using any of those methods should be held accountable for the harm they're causing, but that should apply all the way down too if that's what we're doing. Car drivers already pay tax on fuel and to register their vehicle so you could argue they're already accountable, but I'm not sure that's quite enough when you consider the harm tailpipe emissions do.
Private jets and boats and everything above sounds fine for me
Large cars too? We're starting to get into rather dystopian territory here. I don't drive a large car, but I know I wouldn't like to be tracked just because someone decided I was.
I'm not actually averse to saying the loss of anonymity is the penalty for using particularly polluting modes of transport, but we should frame the rules in those terms, rather than just making ownership records public.
If I meant cars too I would have mentioned cars, please don't start making up strawman arguments.
Sorry, when you said 'and everything above' I thought you were referring to the things I'd listed above.
Reading it the other way, fair enough, you're drawing the line for anonymous travel at private boats or planes. Personally I don't think that's helpful as they just end up chartering them from shell companies they own so their details aren't attached to the flight so they can dodge scrutiny that way. You can try to investigate the companies but they're anonymous that often all you can tell is they're a charter firm a particular person uses a lot. That might be enough, but personally I'd rather either have proper accountability, or accept this isn't the way to do it.
No problem, I could have been more precise.
If they'd start doing that people would find new ways to follow them. I believe that rich people must be named and shamed for their wealth and I don't really feel sorry when not everything goes their way. That topic would open a whole new can of worms though so let's leave it at that I'd say.
Yup, I think that particular can can stay on the shelf. I appreciate the conversation.