Transparency

I think that non-personal information should be freer than it currently is. So much information is simply locked away of inaccessible out of fear or greed.

Consider businesses and copyright law as a whole. Businesses generally like to keep their information a secret, as giving information about their success to
competitors gives competitors an advantage and decreases their advantage. This also applies to copyright law except it is more focused on possible profit and less on competitors. However, this gets in the way of progress. When humanity makes progress, it always is building on some past progress. Thus business, by prevented others access to information, are preventing others from using the past progress to make new progress. Thus we can see some Molochish (https://listed.to/@vt/33797/competition) principles at play - the self-interest of individuals is getting in the way of progress of the whole. Another great reason to hate proprietary software.

For the fear aspect, consider the fear of social/others' judgement. For instance, a conceivable argument against freeing information about class ranks is argued against as a way of reducing bullying. However, if bullying is truly their goal, they would seek elimination of any knowledge of ranks or perhaps eve n grades. In that manner no one knows anything about each others' grade - what is typically seen as intelligence. However, even if grades were unbeknownst to anyone, there could still be bullying. I think that any theoretical bullying for GPA (it seems like much too pitiful of a thing to actually get bullied for, but it is plausible and bullying is generally pitiful) could still occur, but in a different form. The fear, more generally, is of those who appear to be smart (i.e. high grades) asserting their "intelligence" on less "small" people. However, the appearance of intelligence isn't transmitted solely through GPA. For instance, I am rank 2, but pratically everyone I know and even people I barely know considers me to be smarter than the person who is rank 1. I think it is simply because of the way I conduct myself that leads to ideas on me being smarter than her. I mean, I can recall predictions of me being rank 1 in middle school and predictions that I'd bypass her ever since then. Based on my experience, this doesn't seem to be true of rank 3 vs rank 2 (me), and thus isn't just a rooting for underdog kind of thing. It also isn't true of the grade above me. Thus it doesn't seem feasible that releasing information about this will increase bullying. Now, you may ask what even is the point of freeing it. I think it simply allows for the competition to fulfill its purpose better. The idea of competition is to have others to compare oneself to and seek to be better than them. However, if this information isn't disclosed, then there is no ability to compare besides with arbitrary factors like perceived intelligence.

Also consider the argument against releasing government information. I think this information should be released since it allows taxpayers to "trust but verify" what is going on in the government. Furthermore, "closed door" operations should be banned, allowing for anyone to come and "replicate" the experiment. This increases democracy by allowing for the citizens to be informed. However, an argument against this is national security. I believe this to be a futile point, as if a nation isn't following its principles, then it should and must be replaced. The "judgement" part of this is from other nations. Their argument is that if we release our information, then other states can use it to weaken us. They thus fear this judgement. However, I think that in this instance the "why care about privacy if you have nothing to hide" applies because the government isn't a real, living entity and thus doesn't need any rights. Thus if there are any rights that the government needs shouldn't exist and is simply nationalistic fervor. If our nation is so strong that we defeat our enemies, then we shouldn't really have much weakness to hide. However, if our nation is weak then we need to expose our weaknesses to improve. Thus both cases of hiding information results in a loss. I would also like to distinguish between information that is immediately pertinent to saving lives/keeping principles, such as social securities numbers or military movements in a way as these have less to do with the government and more to do with loftier ideals.