Embarrassment is an emotional state which sometimes occurs when the image that we seek to project is undermined. It's painful, but usually temporary. By loss of dignity, I mean that an individual is not being respected if they are not permitted any control over their person space. Humans seem to naturally require some degree of control over what may be witnessed by others and what is theirs alone.

Could you say it's a feeling of powerlessness?

Could we perhaps group together embarrassment, loss of dignity and shame and summarize the point as follows?

"Invasions of privacy cause psychological harm."

Yes, psychological harm is one of the most powerful arguments against privacy invasion as I see it. The other being the potential for social or even physical harm, i.e. misuse of that data by people who are able to gain access to it.

It doesn't matter what it means. What matters is that it exists, and it should be respected.

Otherwise your argument becomes "I don't understand what these things are or why people care about them, and therefore perhaps they don't matter."

And that's not a strong argument.

Of course it matters. If the parent comment had said, "it's the loss of foobar that comes from having no control...", would you know what their argument is? Or that foobar exists? Or that foobar should be respected? Or that you lose foobar when you're seen on the toilet?

It's not possible to understand the parent comment without knowing what dignity is.

> Otherwise your argument becomes "I don't understand what these things are or why people care about them, and therefore perhaps they don't matter."

What argument? I literally said, "I'm not arguing, I'm just not sure what you mean." I was just asking for clarification. I haven't denied anything in the parent comment.