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It is. Particularly to my Western values of freedom and privacy and individuality. Much of what China does seems like that. Horrible and anti-human. What conc

It is. Particularly to my Western values of freedom and privacy and individuality. Much of what China does seems like that. Horrible and anti-human. What concerns me most however, is that this (and similar Orwellian schemes) might actually be truly effective, and our fixation in the West with individual liberties might not be competitive in the long run.

MrTonyD 8y ago
There are lots of effective things - enforce a healthy diet, monitor everyone continuously, reduce the population to improve the environment, put criminals to death. The goal of a society should not be "to be effective, efficient, and cost-justified". Other values must be considered.
- chr1 8y ago
  I believe effective culture in this context should be understood as one able to produce and sustain larger number of people, and spread it's influence to more societies. Reducing population for instance is clearly not effective, because society that does it will be replaced with the neighbour that doesn't. Putting criminals to death doesn't help much as well, and can harm when an innocent person is killed by mistake. In this sense western values have been very effective so far, but as technology changes, they may need to change. Personally i don't think that privacy by itself is a good thing, if there was a device allowing anyone to see video of any place at any time (eliminating all privacy) people would be better off. Things get bad only if a small group that already had control over the society gets exclusive access to the information, further reducing the power of other groups. This is bad, because it reduces the complexity of the society and doesn't allow to explore more paths (which in the long run have always failed so far). But if the powerful group is smart enough it may still make society more effective, by reducing the crime and vandalism, by helping to develop better school programs etc. So if western societies want to remain effective the answer can't be simply 'no cameras' it should be cameras plus better mechanisms for distributing the power of the state between more groups.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    I disagree. I think that "no cameras" by itself is a useful value, because surveillance makes humans behave differently.[0] People have higher levels of stress, are more likely to conform, and probably more likely to engage in civic life. Perhaps the cameras themselves will make surveillance states less competitive? [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201409/all-eyes-you https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201409/all-eyes-...
queen7510 8y ago
I think that, ultimately, your last point will be true. Many things about liberty in places like the UK seem to be treated as some kind of dogma rather than something that we can use to improve and enjoy life more. So people spend a lot of time arguing about them, but don't seem to do much with them (other than argue, I guess). The attitudes towards the type of things in this article are also much more positive from people I talk to in China. Not just random samples online, people that I know and trust. The social credit system for example, people are generally a bit uneasy about it (given the past of their country) but not against it, the practical impact that it can have to them seems like it's worth it. Technology in general seems to be met with much less cynicism and doubt there than the UK. So personally I think that I agree with the notion that these kinds of systems truly have the potential to be effective, and that somewhere like the UK is going to be incapable of harnessing them in the way that somewhere like China is. And as this becomes increasingly apparent the reaction that other countries will have will be interesting and perhaps scary. Will america become increasingly confrontational? Try to instigate something in Taiwan? Idk. 2025 is the year that I've chosen to wait until before I make a judgement as to how messed up things really are.
marcosdumay 8y ago
I fear it's something worse than effective. At some point somebody will come with a way to make it effective at the short term, with disastrous long term consequences.
- larkeith 8y ago
  What's scarier - disastrous long-term consequences, or long-term success over other strategies?
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    Disastrous long-term consequences are scarier as long as they have some short term benefits. At least with long-term success you have something positive at the end. Humans, particularly politicians and young people, tend to have a high time preference. That is, they put more emphasis on the here and now over future deferred rewards and consequences. This means that if a strategy has good short term rewards, then people will often ignore the long-term effects. Even if you can show that the long-term effects are negative, they are likely to ignore it. Eg moving towards socialism. We have plenty of evidenced from past attempts that socialism is likely not going to work, but people still like advocating for such policies, because they have a positive impact in the short term.

MrTonyD 8y ago

There are lots of effective things - enforce a healthy diet, monitor everyone continuously, reduce the population to improve the environment, put criminals to death. The goal of a society should not be "to be effective, efficient, and cost-justified". Other values must be considered.

chr1 8y ago
I believe effective culture in this context should be understood as one able to produce and sustain larger number of people, and spread it's influence to more societies. Reducing population for instance is clearly not effective, because society that does it will be replaced with the neighbour that doesn't. Putting criminals to death doesn't help much as well, and can harm when an innocent person is killed by mistake. In this sense western values have been very effective so far, but as technology changes, they may need to change. Personally i don't think that privacy by itself is a good thing, if there was a device allowing anyone to see video of any place at any time (eliminating all privacy) people would be better off. Things get bad only if a small group that already had control over the society gets exclusive access to the information, further reducing the power of other groups. This is bad, because it reduces the complexity of the society and doesn't allow to explore more paths (which in the long run have always failed so far). But if the powerful group is smart enough it may still make society more effective, by reducing the crime and vandalism, by helping to develop better school programs etc. So if western societies want to remain effective the answer can't be simply 'no cameras' it should be cameras plus better mechanisms for distributing the power of the state between more groups.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  I disagree. I think that "no cameras" by itself is a useful value, because surveillance makes humans behave differently.[0] People have higher levels of stress, are more likely to conform, and probably more likely to engage in civic life. Perhaps the cameras themselves will make surveillance states less competitive? [0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201409/all-eyes-you https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201409/all-eyes-...

queen7510 8y ago

I think that, ultimately, your last point will be true. Many things about liberty in places like the UK seem to be treated as some kind of dogma rather than something that we can use to improve and enjoy life more. So people spend a lot of time arguing about them, but don't seem to do much with them (other than argue, I guess). The attitudes towards the type of things in this article are also much more positive from people I talk to in China. Not just random samples online, people that I know and trust. The social credit system for example, people are generally a bit uneasy about it (given the past of their country) but not against it, the practical impact that it can have to them seems like it's worth it. Technology in general seems to be met with much less cynicism and doubt there than the UK. So personally I think that I agree with the notion that these kinds of systems truly have the potential to be effective, and that somewhere like the UK is going to be incapable of harnessing them in the way that somewhere like China is. And as this becomes increasingly apparent the reaction that other countries will have will be interesting and perhaps scary. Will america become increasingly confrontational? Try to instigate something in Taiwan? Idk. 2025 is the year that I've chosen to wait until before I make a judgement as to how messed up things really are.

marcosdumay 8y ago

I fear it's something worse than effective. At some point somebody will come with a way to make it effective at the short term, with disastrous long term consequences.

larkeith 8y ago
What's scarier - disastrous long-term consequences, or long-term success over other strategies?
- Mirioron 8y ago
  Disastrous long-term consequences are scarier as long as they have some short term benefits. At least with long-term success you have something positive at the end. Humans, particularly politicians and young people, tend to have a high time preference. That is, they put more emphasis on the here and now over future deferred rewards and consequences. This means that if a strategy has good short term rewards, then people will often ignore the long-term effects. Even if you can show that the long-term effects are negative, they are likely to ignore it. Eg moving towards socialism. We have plenty of evidenced from past attempts that socialism is likely not going to work, but people still like advocating for such policies, because they have a positive impact in the short term.