In terms of the modern surveillance state, East Germany and the Stasi have probably been the best studied example. Fortunately, that surveillance didn't scale

In terms of the modern surveillance state, East Germany and the Stasi have probably been the best studied example. Fortunately, that surveillance didn't scale well, despite the stereotypical German attempts moving towards industrial efficiency. In fact a number of articles were produced around how the Orwellian surveillance state didn't scale well using the East Germany/Stasi example. It required far too many full-time and part-time humans at too high frictional cost. So I wonder how we will look back in a generation at North Korea(if it falls/opens and can be studied) or more scalable Chinese social scoring and surveillance systems(as well as western systems). I've seen enough exponential abundance charts to last a lifetime. But I have not seen a chart with an anticipated date for when price/performance makes total surveillance viable.