> There are plenty of things you and I don't want anyone to know. I don't want the world to know when I'm on vacation. I don't want my neighbors to know I left my balcony door open and I just have the screen door closed so I conserve energy. I don't want every girl I meet to know that I collect comic books. The idea that I shouldn't be doing any of those things is completely absurd.
The point is that if the world really wanted to find out about these activities, there is someone in the world with the information who knows of it.
Just taking one of your examples: comic books---you buy them from some source, and that source likely knows who you are.
Absolute privacy is impossible unless no one is interested in your activities, and your activities don't involve any other human being or leave any trace.
I hear this reasoning all the time -- that your desire to keep X private is null and void because some fringe Y case would expose you. The world isn't black and white and privacy isn't binary.
There are already privacy protections for doctor/patient and attorney/client, so clearly a legal precedent has been set in those cases -- why not others?
The comic book example, just because the source knows who you are doesn't mean it's for them to plaster your picture up on every internet site and telephone pole.
Consider this analogy: Before Google and Wikipedia, to find out about some subject, you'd have to find an encyclopedia, journey to its location, and spend time paging through it to get info.
While that was possible, the price in time and effort was very high compared to an internet search.
That same change affects our privacy. Before, a scammer could single you out, look through your information, and visit people to make connections. Today, a scammer in a foreign country can search through millions of public records to find the connection he knows he can exploit every morning, while laying in bed.
My point is, more of what happens on planet Earth is determined by ease than possibility. And ease makes new things possible. This fact is especially relevant in terms of computation.
The point is that if the world really wanted to find out about these activities, there is someone in the world with the information who knows of it.
Just taking one of your examples: comic books---you buy them from some source, and that source likely knows who you are.
Absolute privacy is impossible unless no one is interested in your activities, and your activities don't involve any other human being or leave any trace.