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It's not a theoretical situation for most of the world, though.

• luckylion 6y ago
  I'd say it is. The number of countries that want to go super-authoritarian and are able to do so via control of information and data gathering (instead of simply putting a police guy with an AK47 on each corner and install an inquisitor) is small. China seems to be the only one that's capable of doing it and really wants to. Russia might at some point in the future if the establishment's grip on power lessens, but their issues are different. Other countries would certainly like to, but lack the abilities. Maybe China will supply them, but I don't know whether the Chinese system of surveillance and control would work in e.g. Turkey or Saudi-Arabia with very different cultures.
  • shadowprofile77 6y ago
    What you describe is only circumstantially the case for the time being. These technologies are only becoming more affordable to a wider range of governments that previously wouldn't have dreamed of the resources necessary for them. But, just as almost all computing becomes cheaper per unit of data processed or any other basic measure, so too does the apparatus for widespread digital surveillance. What China and only a few others can do now is something that more countries will be able to do in the coming decades unless some major technological or social shift occurs. That's an idea that bears much closer consideration The above works institutionally in the same way that you as an average person can today use a tiny device that's affordable to billions of people and fits in your pocket for doing things that 30 to 40 years ago would have been available only to very wealthy individuals and organizations.