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The Panopticon Is Already Here
- the-dude 6y agoVery very long article going in all directions, as long as it is about China : bad. Nothing to substantiate the title.
- bzb3 6y agoAs George Costanza once said, news about China is an instant page-turner.
- the-dude 6y agoDo you recall the episode? ( Seinfeld fan here ).
- apsurd 6y agoseason 9 episode 15 — the wizard https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0697813/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0697813/ =] very first opening line
- mellow2020 6y agoThis is hardly "about China".
- the-dude 6y ago96 matches.
- mellow2020 6y agoThere's stuff going back to the 1940s that warning about totalitarianism and technology. There is also this from 1958: https://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html https://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html Yes, the article is about that stuff in China, because in 2020 that's there the most aggressive development of that occurs. But it's not "about China", as if it was also about cuisine and any random thing to do with China. It's more specific than that.
- dccoolgai 6y agoThere is a lot to read here, but it is all important and all possible. I don't know that it can even be stopped at this point, it's just an index to check on periodically to confirm "ok, that's how far down the path we are right now".
- mellow2020 6y ago"Predictions" are pointless. It's wrong, and just about everything that is good and decent about human life and the human mind is endangered by it. So I'm against it, regardless of the "chances" of whatever outcome. I know what's required for human dignity, I will rather die than betray that, and if everybody thought that way, it would be over in one week. That they don't is their problem and something for them to find peace with. I don't worry about that nor about saving the world, my sole responsibility is being worthy of having been born into a better one, or into the same one among better peers. That is within my agency, and only I can let it slip.
- kyboren 6y agoUnfortunately, that they don't is also our problem.
- monadic2 6y agoWhat could an individual do to fight injustice by a state, anyway?
- chishaku 6y agoOrganize with other individuals.
- pc86 6y agoThis seems like pseudo-self help nonsense. What exactly are you suggesting, other than "be a good person?"
- mellow2020 6y ago
- chrisweekly 6y ago"A crude version of such a system is already in operation in China’s northwestern territory of Xinjiang, where more than 1 million Muslim Uighurs have been imprisoned, the largest internment of an ethnic-religious minority since the fall of the Third Reich." There's so much in this article that merits comment / discussion, but this sentence really jumped out at me. I'd been vaguely aware that this kind of thing was happening in the PRC, but not at this historic scale.... Western values matter more than ever. Here's hoping for a sea change this fall.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- HenryKissinger 6y agoPro tip: If you ever find yourself in a semi-professional discussion, I would avoid referring to democracy, human rights, and individual freedoms as "Western values." Attaching a specific cultural and anthropological carte to what I view more as universal values that have yet to take roots universally, is exclusive and counter-productive. For one, China went through a period of Western domination starting in the 19th century, and Chinese people haven't forgotten that. Asking China to follow Western values in this context is about the worst thing you can say. Just because these concepts originated in the Western world should not preclude one from putting them in the context of the larger human enterprise. Do not ask, "Why shall China not walk in the footsteps of the West in giving its people the right to shape their destiny?" Ask, "Why shall the Chinese people not be at liberty of shaping their own destiny?"
- Nasrudith 6y agoYeah it also invites all sorts of stupidity to paint totalitarianism as "just their culture" which is itself bigotry wearing a mask of anti-colonialism in apologetics to that which should be condemned. It brings to mind dismissing infamous warlord oppression with child soldiers and instituionalized rape as "just their culture". This should be universally obvious but fundamentally people are people no matter their origin or culture.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
- drummer 6y agoA good read. Again, imagine such a government in charge of universal basic income distribution and the majority of 'citizens' dependent on that. Not a bright future.
- dantondwa 6y agoSorry, what does this have to do with UBI? With such a government, any future wouldn’t be desirable. Imagine such government in charge of unemployment benefits, health services, the military, anything really: it’s grim in any case. Moreover, universal basic income is universal, by definition. If a government denies it to some particular citizens according to some criteria, it is not universal anymore. It becomes an income provided to anyone who is in favor of the government, which is a very different thing. So, if universal basic income existed, even the Chinese government would have to give it to everyone... or otherwise give it another name.
- iso1210 6y agoMaybe they'll define some people as being 3/5ths of a person. It's been done before.
- dllthomas 6y agoGod, I hate the rhetoric around the 3/5ths compromise. Not because I support it, but because in the circumstances in question the implication that they should have been treated as "full people" (in the only place 3/5 applied) is the pro slavery position. Of course the slaves should have had freedom. Of course they should have had the vote. But they had zero of either of those. Increasing the power of the society that enslaves by 3/5 the number of slaves isn't treating them as 3/5 of a person! Morally speaking the number should have been zero (or negative!) if it had to be a question at all.
- aspenmayer 6y agoSlaveholders were taxed, but slaves were not represented. The taxation compromise was intended by Feds to delay the same forces that led to the Civil War. It was not a pro slavery position, but it definitely kowtowed to pro slavery positions predominantly held by slaveholders. Unintended consequences of negotiating with slavers were that the compromise was interpreted by slaveholders as increasingly punitive and untenable as time went on. That’s why you don’t negotiate with terrorists. Sooner or later, they will leverage their position into a better deal at your table, or they will find a better deal at a different table, one which may render any leverage against them moot.
- mathieubordere 6y agoIt’s a good, chilling read but this sentence right at the end bothered me. “Until they secure their personal liberty, at some unimaginable cost, free people everywhere will have to hope against hope that the world’s most intelligent machines are made elsewhere.” I don’t agree, with the “right” people in charge, the intelligent machines pose a risk to humankind everywhere.
- thecreamedcorn 6y agoI agree with that intelligent machines pose a risk regardless of who has the best intentions, but its also true that certain countries (namely china) have demonstrated that they are more willing and motivated to use it for devious surveillance purposes.
- api 6y agoWe are creating a concentration camp for ourselves to get people to click ads.
- monadic2 6y agoYou realize a concentration camp implies concentrating people’s physical bodies into a contained space, right? There are many examples, including right here in the US (border camps, Guantanamo). Being subject to a corporation’s whims is not comparable to being an enemy or prisoner of the state without due process. Palantir, on the other hand, has a direct role in this process of concentrating undesirables.
- api 6y agoEarth is a confined space. Total surveillance could mean there are few places in the world outside maybe deep wilderness where surveillance can be escaped.
- Nasrudith 6y agoThere is a major logical flaw in that rhetoric. What good would displaying ads to concentration camp prisoners do? Advertising is fundamentally about getting something that they want from the capabilities of the audience be it votes or money. Concentration camp victims are rather lacking in them - even if you include "ability to resist" which in itself is redudant given the extreme measures of control. That is like saying "In the dark future of unrestrained capitalism will sell ads to sex slaves chained in the basement - where they have no money or freedom." It might tug at heart strings but it makes so little sense it sounds like an outright parody of such sentiments.
- aarpmcgee 6y agoI took "concentration camp" as a metaphor fwiw.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- daxfohl 6y agoSounds like we're heading to a new era of feudalism.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Havoc 6y agoIf not worse. The current system of capitalism already feels quite feudalism like in that the "peasants" have very little chance of escaping. Developments like these will just turn that up to 11
- airstrike 6y agohttps://outline.com/ApPUdb https://outline.com/ApPUdb
- mcshicks 6y agoStuck at home with more time on my hands I've been rereading a lot of old sf. I just finished the last of John Twelve Hawk's 4th realm trilogy which has a modern technological Panopticon society as it's central theme. While some of the technological speculation is strictly fiction, it's surprising how much the series (last volume published 2009) foreshadows modern surveillance trends. The trends mentioned in the article could have dropped right into the story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Realm_Trilogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Realm_Trilogy
- foolzcrow 6y agoNow you know why they want to backdoor all encryption. Why do so many governments hate freedom?
- tehjoker 6y agoctrl-F "NSA" no matches. They're really trying to pretend the Bush and Obama years didn't happen huh?
- eivarv 6y agoHere's hoping for a Butlerian Jihad... or, you know, just introducing privacy legislation that make specific outcomes, not methods, illegal – in the same way that murder is illegal, regardless of method, tools, etc. While Tethics and AI are buzzwords du jour, the problem is more general: The weakening of liberal democratic values. We need laws and regulation that guarantee privacy more concretely as a foundational right.
- baybal2 6y agoSpot on, America, and West such, wouldn't have a reason to worry in the first place if it managed to maintain the integrity of the Western bloc after the cold war. By letting its foreign policy wonder into grey area by playing overtures with regimes of all kind without any reservations, it allowed for norms, and boundaries to be blurred, and resolve of its camp blunted. What is happening now, is that the whole Western camp have descended into whataboutism with relation to what rogue regime each bloc member is playing ball with, without no authority left in the bloc "clean enough" to police it. What rogue regimes made to the West in the last 20 years, is nothing, but a gang initiation in reverse. First they lured the West into playing their dirty games, and when Western countries thoroughly dirtied their hands, then come and say "your hands are as dirty as mine, what's the point fighting now?"
- runawaybottle 6y agoNot saying it’s a perfect book, but that’s roughly Ian Bremmer’s thesis: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/159184620X?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/159184620X?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_...
- eivarv 6y ago... and the West slipping into borderline crypto-authoritarianism itself with mass-surveillance and so on - encroaching on citizens' rights while excusing themselves with being the good guys, and only protecting the population against the usual suspects of bad actors.
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- WealthVsSurvive 6y agoLet's try a thought experiment. Suppose that human intelligence and consciousness are not ends unto themselves: I think therefore I am is false. Suppose that human intelligence is secondary to the will to power, to life, which is merely a chemical that repeats or does not: I am that I am, just an infinite paperclip factory. Suppose what is meant by consciousness and feeling is merely a death/not-death projection machine that attempts to conjure scenarios of fear and joy, dreams and nightmares, through the dimension of time, via memory stored in gray matter. Now this human AI creates a tool which can read the nuances of the human AI and bend them to its will. What occurs after?
- ALittleLight 6y agoVery sad and horrifying to read about. Worse because I don't know what constructive things I can do in this context. AI is a race that absolutely must be won by good actors rather than totalitarian states.
- canjobear 6y agoIt looks like AI will be simple and not prohibitively expensive to develop. So it doesn't matter who "wins the race"---once it exists, it will be available to all.
- erikerikson 6y agoDoes the technology exist? Can we put the genie back in the bottle? So then what? This article and a lot of the literature assumes the same tools are not also turned upon the managers of society (i.e. that they get to use the times in secret). Many fear that knowledge of our lives will support interference in our lives. Perhaps any such interference must be just as observable and prohibited by law in a free society. Who watches the watchers? We all could. When there is a conflict or question we have records to review and public opinion to adjudicate. Of course we would have to rethink a number of assumable cultural expectations.
- ilaksh 6y agoMy personal belief is that the problems are being oversimplified and that is very counterproductive. I'm sure people will misinterpret what I am trying to say. But, it is framed as a "democracy or tyranny" question. I believe that although the authoritarianism is quite horrific in some ways, in some respects there are actually advantages. Which, if you are still reading, is not to suggest in any way that it is the correct path, but maybe is a hint that our current "democratic system" may not be quite what it is cracked up to be either. Again, in no way suggesting we should get closer to a closed system, but I feel like honest evaluation will see very significant deficiencies with western governments such as the United States. For example, looking at the extreme political divide in the country sometimes makes government seem like a joke. I personally believe that the best and maybe the only way to move forward constructively is to be realistic about the flaws in both extremely divergent views (east and west) and think of a totally new shared philosophy and way for government to operate.. But most likely that will not happen, and I also personally believe that another world war may be stimulated by poor technical adjustment to global accounting collapse (along with the complete failure of cultural and political integration). I think if this occurs then it will prove that humans are not fit to control the planet, and hope that we will soon have competent and (one can hope benign) but much more sophisticated AIs that we can pass the torch of evolution to.