I was watching a Joe Scott video about the Somerton Man, and at one point he mentions it’s believed he just wanted to be forgotten.
I’ve met a lot of people who are like this. They feel too dysphoric about their life and are eager to see the day when their families all pass away or have memory loss so that the worst parts of their life aren’t in other peoples’ heads anymore. It’s sad.
There are a lot of things we consider rights by default. There’s a right to a burial. There’s a right to a last meal. There’s a right to a will. Some of these have people who philosophize about them but most are taken for granted.
Do you think there’s a right to be forgotten? How much do you validate it? What’s your reasoning?
To the extent that privacy-violating data collected about you should be deleted on request, absolutely.
But there are basic things like public records which should remain public. Birth/death records, property records/titles, marriage records, business ownership, etc.
Ideally it would be nice if there were protections in place on what data a company or government is allowed to collect about you in the first place, but anyone whose personal/private data (not public records) are collected by a company or government office should be able to both request copies of those records on demand and ask that they be deleted if desired.