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Yes, it's honest for them to say, "we're scared of terrorists," but they're not also self-aware enough of the ramifications of mass surveillance, so they can't

Yes, it's honest for them to say, "we're scared of terrorists," but they're not also self-aware enough of the ramifications of mass surveillance, so they can't be honest about that. And motivated reasoning explains why they're not likely to become aware of it; They're not incentivized to. Of the many problems mass surveillance brings, the least hyperbolic one I see pending is corporate leverage to wrest private resources like farmland, home ownership, water, vehicle and computer ownership away from individuals. With their complete economic models of the citizenship, banks and businesses can ensure through operating costs, fees, interest rates, etc. that we never gain complete control of our own resources, that we'll always have to be working for the system in the way it wants. If we're run as a completely data-driven entity with greedy power holders choosing the parameters, the only lucky ones who can opt out are the clever who are able to expand the surveillance economy. This violates the will of the Constitutional pursuit of happiness. We should be free to live independently, happily and simply from a modest amount of hard work without getting drawn into the black hole of the surveillance economy.

drinkjuice 10y ago
As horrid as that is, I think it could go way beyond it even. In some form or other, we need privacy not "just because", but because it's vitally important to become and be a person. Not (just) to do evil things without others knowing, but because a mass is not a group of persons, it's just a mass. Everybody needs to be alone sometimes, everybody needs to be able to be alone, at least I think so; and consciously or subconsciously, known or not, the fact of everything being recorded and look at and/or datamined to hell and back, forever, to be twisted into new narratives completely out of the reach of the person living their life, might have very drastic effects, in the long run. We "killed God" and Nietzsche asked if we have even the faintest idea of what that implies, and I feel regardless of that, killing man is already well underway, with a similar sleepwalking quality to it. It might start with garden variety rush tyranny and mass murder, but maybe it goes way deeper than that, deeper than even AI or automation, wiping personhood (for lack of a better way to put it) out at the root with nobody even feeling it. We get used to everything, why not get used to regressing to individual mindlessness for the sake of some ill-defined greater good of some ill-defined greater entity? Crazier things have happened.
- chillingeffect 10y ago
  oh yes, I agree. it may be much, much worse. the above was an exercise for me in presenting the most probable and relatable, yet least fearful, scenario as a persuasive effort. I like the way you place privacy in the same place as Nietzsche's dead god... a gift that may disappear if we don't keep it alive.

drinkjuice 10y ago

As horrid as that is, I think it could go way beyond it even. In some form or other, we need privacy not "just because", but because it's vitally important to become and be a person. Not (just) to do evil things without others knowing, but because a mass is not a group of persons, it's just a mass. Everybody needs to be alone sometimes, everybody needs to be able to be alone, at least I think so; and consciously or subconsciously, known or not, the fact of everything being recorded and look at and/or datamined to hell and back, forever, to be twisted into new narratives completely out of the reach of the person living their life, might have very drastic effects, in the long run. We "killed God" and Nietzsche asked if we have even the faintest idea of what that implies, and I feel regardless of that, killing man is already well underway, with a similar sleepwalking quality to it. It might start with garden variety rush tyranny and mass murder, but maybe it goes way deeper than that, deeper than even AI or automation, wiping personhood (for lack of a better way to put it) out at the root with nobody even feeling it. We get used to everything, why not get used to regressing to individual mindlessness for the sake of some ill-defined greater good of some ill-defined greater entity? Crazier things have happened.

chillingeffect 10y ago
oh yes, I agree. it may be much, much worse. the above was an exercise for me in presenting the most probable and relatable, yet least fearful, scenario as a persuasive effort. I like the way you place privacy in the same place as Nietzsche's dead god... a gift that may disappear if we don't keep it alive.