5 ms·

I always ask this, I've been around for decades of pearl clutching and doomsaying, and the dystopia never arrives. "This technology could be used to blah blah b

I always ask this, I've been around for decades of pearl clutching and doomsaying, and the dystopia never arrives. "This technology could be used to blah blah blah," but is it actually used that way? No one ever seems to have information about non-hypotheticals and I'm tired of slippery slope hysteria.

mschuster91 3y ago
> "This technology could be used to blah blah blah," but is it actually used that way? For one, you're falling towards the "preparedness paradoxon". But much worse: Yes, we absolutely have examples in the real world just how fucked up surveillance can get. The GDR's Stasi for example tracked people, just using people instead of technology, to an insane degree. Erich Mielke would openly drool in his grave if he knew just how powerful technology has become. In recent times, look at China and their "social credit" score. Don't believe for a single second the US is unable to sink that low. Even decades-old stuff believed to be safe can be struck down with the stroke of a pen of the Supreme Court. Get your expectations codified in a constitutional amendment, or be prepared to literally have to fight for your expectations. Abortion was just the beginning.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  I hoped that "examples in the US" and "in modern times" was implied. I'm still waiting for those examples instead of "Remember the Stasi" and your parting slippery slope.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > I'm still waiting for those examples instead of "Remember the Stasi" and your parting slippery slope. I'm German. Unlike you in the US, we have museums dedicated to the horrors of the NS regime as well as the Stasi and general GDR dictatorship around the country. I can recommend you a visit if you get the chance to visit Germany - there is no argument as convincing as actually seeing eyewitness accounts and evidence of how depraved humans can get.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        I answered in a parallel comment.
  - George83728 3y ago
    > I hoped that "examples in the US" and "in modern times" was implied. Something that happened in Germany in the 80s is not exactly a time long ago in a galaxy far away...
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      From a modern technological perspective it might as well be, especially when we're talking about East Germany under Soviet occupation.
      - George83728 3y ago
        The lesson you should learn from this is that you don't always get to pick your government.
  - drewbeck 3y ago
    I try to never learn things from other country's experiences, too, or the past in general. These criticism are always invalid until the society in question goes full fascist. Only then can wring our hands and be sad, but until then it's all abstract and not worth worrying about.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      A classic slippery slope argument, free from anything like the burden of pointing to anything real. Where are the examples of this burgeoning techno-fascism? Where are the disappeared? Where is the American version of Zersetzung? Where is the creeping "social credit score" style of monitoring? We've had this tech for a while now, so where are the examples of it being systematically abused by the government?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        Have you heard of the No Fly list, with completely innocent people being flagged and finding it out to be almost impossible to get out of that database? Of people being denied entry to the US because CBP thinks they might be sex workers? About the prosecution of (suspected) sex workers in the US in general? About how marijuana was banned to target hippies and anti-war protesters? About how teachers can lose their license for talking about LGBT topics? About widespread dragnet subpoena abuse using Google Maps as data provider?
        EA-3167 3y ago
        The No Fly List failing spectacularly as a bit of security theater is not a good argument against anything other than overly contrived security theater, and poor database controls. The rest doesn't seem to have much to do with technology, more to do with Florida politics.
        mschuster91 3y ago
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Okay - do we have relevant examples where the creepy spy-on-everyone technology came before the nasty authoritarian regime? East Germany, North Korea, Soviet Russia, etc. were dire places (for human rights) back when their State Security Ministries had not yet heard of transistors.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    Guess what the OG 1933-45 Nazis used for the holocaust? Yup, prior existing databases and census information, to quickly identify Jews. Isn't one of the reasons why you Americans don't mandate the possession of a valid passport or ID card to avoid the creation of such a database? Or why the ATF is forced to operate on paper card records to prevent the government from having a readily usable database to identify gun owners? Besides, look up the No Fly list. Have the same name as a terrorist? You're not getting on that flight and it's barely possible to get removed from the list.
    - bell-cot 3y ago
      I'm looking for "Creepy Tech ==>> Bad Regime" causality. We could ban black robes, crypto, and toilet paper because Evil Overlords find those things useful - but such bans seem unlikely to have much anti-evil effect. > ...why you Americans don't mandate the possession... Sounds like you haven't tried to buy a beer in America. Let alone vote. Last time I volunteered for a local food bank (doing bottom-end manual labor), I was told to bring picture ID. I've only been volunteering for them about 25 years now. The No Fly list is a far better argument against security theater and endless bungling at scale than it is an argument against creepy government. If the U.S. was preparing and serving chicken salad sandwiches as widely and incompetently as they're doing the No Fly list, then Food Poisoning would be the #1 cause of death in the U.S.
banannaise 3y ago
...wait, you don't think police departments currently go after dissidents by looking for anything they can charge them for, or that surveillance technology allows them to do this more easily?
- EA-3167 3y ago
  I don't know, do they? I'm still waiting for someone to reply with concrete examples of systemic abuse, not this kind of emotive nonsense.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    Yeah this definitely comes across as a totally neutral and curious disposition about it. Police abuses against dissidents and disinherited is widespread and well documented if you're not actively trying not to discover it. It's not other people's responsibility to do this work for you especially once you've gone out of your way to frame the very idea as "emotive nonsense."
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      If these systemic abuses based on technology are so easy to find, why are you and others replying to me so bad at producing them?
      - giraffe_lady 3y ago
        Because like I said it's not our responsibility to. You're openly hostile to the idea of them existing and no one is obligated to talk you out of the cowardice you appear happy to inhabit.
        EA-3167 3y ago
        [flagged]
        Georgelemental 3y ago
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
Hmm. I seem to recall discussion here on HN, just yesterday, about the FBI misusing their surveillance power 280,000 times in a year. Is that enough non-hypothetical for you?
- EA-3167 3y ago
  Not really, if you get into the story it's much less about abusing technology, and much more about abusing FISA courts. I also think that said courts releasing a public reprimand for that behavior is precisely the sort of accountability and transparency you don't get it in authoritarian regimes. The system isn't working perfectly by any means, but it isn't some techno-fascist hellscape. You could remove the technology from the story entirely and it would be the same.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    You asked if the technology is actually used this way. The answer is, yes, it is (or at least similar abilities are misused in a similar way). > Not really, if you get into the story it's much less about abusing technology, and much more about abusing FISA courts. It's about law enforcement having easy access to information that they're not supposed to use unless they have good reason to, and them using the information even when they don't have good reason to. > I also think that said courts releasing a public reprimand for that behavior is precisely the sort of accountability and transparency you don't get it in authoritarian regimes. True, though I would have preferred denying those requests in the first place. > The system isn't working perfectly by any means, but it isn't some techno-fascist hellscape. Yet. You seem to be attacking the thesis "these tools can only lead us to techno-fascism". But how about the converse thesis: "When fascism shows up, it will inevitably use these tools. And therefore we should be cautious about building these tools, and allowing the authorities to use them." > You could remove the technology from the story entirely and it would be the same. Without the technology, the data would not be (ab)used on anything like the same scale. Look, I'm not entirely opposed to law enforcement having information available when they need it. But we keep expecting them to only use it when they have legally-recognized good reason, and they keep going well beyond that. We should know by now that there will be too many people in law enforcement who will attempt to abuse the process and subvert the limitations, and we should start thinking seriously about how to prevent that. Whether "we can't prevent that (well enough)" is grounds for not building the tools at all is a different question, one we are not forced to answer quite yet. We should at least start at "how can we make these (much) harder to abuse".
BryantD 3y ago
This may or may not qualify for you: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/new-report-shows-department-of-homeland-security-gathered-intel-on-portland-black-lives-matter-protestors https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/new-report-shows-departm... Here’s why it counts for me. It’s not scary new tech, but it is a case that shows that police departments will be as aggressive as possible about collecting data. This isn’t “cops are bad.” Most of us would do the same thing, as evidenced by the endless thirst for data that most tech companies have. When there’s a way to learn more about something, humans tend to lean into it rather than worrying about inchoate potential misuse.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  I feel like I'm not getting my point across very well. I'm not skeptical that law enforcement will seek to gather all of the info it can, just like the NSA does, I'm asking where the dystopian hellscape is as a result of this. Where are the comedians being banned like they are in China? Where is the social credit score? Where are the disappearances? Everyone seems to be offering, "Think of how bad it could be," but most of their examples center on right wing politics rather than technology.
  - BryantD 3y ago
    Okay, that’s fair —- thanks for clarifying! My feeling is that once you start compiling this data in a formal way, you’ve taken a significant step towards the dystopian events you’re describing. I agree that the ability to do a thing is not the same as the thing happening. However, exactly as I try and remove the ability to make manual mistakes from my deployment pipelines, I also think it’s good to restrict the ability to impose dystopian rules. But that is a really big topic and I am not expecting you to say “oh yeah you’re right” just because I made a dubious analogy. I appreciate that you took the time to clarify.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      The feeling is mutual, it's good to see that there's still the possibility of mutually respectful discussion on this topic. Thank you.
kevviiinn 3y ago
The dystopia already exists, you just happen to be one of the lucky ones that it isn't impacting as much
salawat 3y ago
It never comes because we fight it. If you stop fighting it, and let it gain ground, it is an inevitability. There is a reason why back in Lincoln's day, the preservation of Liberties for fiture generations was extolled to a near religious degree. The transfer of fewer liberties between generations is hard to notice, as the incoming generation is removed from the state where the apparatus was not around. This is why Jefferson wanted sunset dates on everything, so every group would have to fully come to grips with why things are the way they are instead of going with Madison's view of a state of affairs where "deference to the dead" was the norm and an eventual State where all the laws in existence were handed down or made on the basis of the lives of people who are long dead. Governments should serve the living. Not the dead. Governing is hard. Anyone who jumps into it thinking otherwise is a fool.
ROTMetro 3y ago
I'm not doing research for someone as disingenuous as you (sorry I don't have a canned response file for reference on Government overreach/abuses) but this was a discussion on this website just yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36041059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36041059 I'm pretty sure since you made your way to Hacker New you can also Google the relevant information you are asking other who came to a random article to somehow have already compiled for you.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  [flagged]
kornhole 3y ago
These incremental steps are imperceptible by design. We already live in a dystopia, but most do not perceive what is happening on many fronts.

mschuster91 3y ago

> "This technology could be used to blah blah blah," but is it actually used that way? For one, you're falling towards the "preparedness paradoxon". But much worse: Yes, we absolutely have examples in the real world just how fucked up surveillance can get. The GDR's Stasi for example tracked people, just using people instead of technology, to an insane degree. Erich Mielke would openly drool in his grave if he knew just how powerful technology has become. In recent times, look at China and their "social credit" score. Don't believe for a single second the US is unable to sink that low. Even decades-old stuff believed to be safe can be struck down with the stroke of a pen of the Supreme Court. Get your expectations codified in a constitutional amendment, or be prepared to literally have to fight for your expectations. Abortion was just the beginning.

EA-3167 3y ago
I hoped that "examples in the US" and "in modern times" was implied. I'm still waiting for those examples instead of "Remember the Stasi" and your parting slippery slope.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > I'm still waiting for those examples instead of "Remember the Stasi" and your parting slippery slope. I'm German. Unlike you in the US, we have museums dedicated to the horrors of the NS regime as well as the Stasi and general GDR dictatorship around the country. I can recommend you a visit if you get the chance to visit Germany - there is no argument as convincing as actually seeing eyewitness accounts and evidence of how depraved humans can get.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      I answered in a parallel comment.
- George83728 3y ago
  > I hoped that "examples in the US" and "in modern times" was implied. Something that happened in Germany in the 80s is not exactly a time long ago in a galaxy far away...
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    From a modern technological perspective it might as well be, especially when we're talking about East Germany under Soviet occupation.
    - George83728 3y ago
      The lesson you should learn from this is that you don't always get to pick your government.
- drewbeck 3y ago
  I try to never learn things from other country's experiences, too, or the past in general. These criticism are always invalid until the society in question goes full fascist. Only then can wring our hands and be sad, but until then it's all abstract and not worth worrying about.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    A classic slippery slope argument, free from anything like the burden of pointing to anything real. Where are the examples of this burgeoning techno-fascism? Where are the disappeared? Where is the American version of Zersetzung? Where is the creeping "social credit score" style of monitoring? We've had this tech for a while now, so where are the examples of it being systematically abused by the government?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      Have you heard of the No Fly list, with completely innocent people being flagged and finding it out to be almost impossible to get out of that database? Of people being denied entry to the US because CBP thinks they might be sex workers? About the prosecution of (suspected) sex workers in the US in general? About how marijuana was banned to target hippies and anti-war protesters? About how teachers can lose their license for talking about LGBT topics? About widespread dragnet subpoena abuse using Google Maps as data provider?
      - EA-3167 3y ago
        The No Fly List failing spectacularly as a bit of security theater is not a good argument against anything other than overly contrived security theater, and poor database controls. The rest doesn't seem to have much to do with technology, more to do with Florida politics.
        mschuster91 3y ago
bell-cot 3y ago
Okay - do we have relevant examples where the creepy spy-on-everyone technology came before the nasty authoritarian regime? East Germany, North Korea, Soviet Russia, etc. were dire places (for human rights) back when their State Security Ministries had not yet heard of transistors.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  Guess what the OG 1933-45 Nazis used for the holocaust? Yup, prior existing databases and census information, to quickly identify Jews. Isn't one of the reasons why you Americans don't mandate the possession of a valid passport or ID card to avoid the creation of such a database? Or why the ATF is forced to operate on paper card records to prevent the government from having a readily usable database to identify gun owners? Besides, look up the No Fly list. Have the same name as a terrorist? You're not getting on that flight and it's barely possible to get removed from the list.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    I'm looking for "Creepy Tech ==>> Bad Regime" causality. We could ban black robes, crypto, and toilet paper because Evil Overlords find those things useful - but such bans seem unlikely to have much anti-evil effect. > ...why you Americans don't mandate the possession... Sounds like you haven't tried to buy a beer in America. Let alone vote. Last time I volunteered for a local food bank (doing bottom-end manual labor), I was told to bring picture ID. I've only been volunteering for them about 25 years now. The No Fly list is a far better argument against security theater and endless bungling at scale than it is an argument against creepy government. If the U.S. was preparing and serving chicken salad sandwiches as widely and incompetently as they're doing the No Fly list, then Food Poisoning would be the #1 cause of death in the U.S.

banannaise 3y ago

...wait, you don't think police departments currently go after dissidents by looking for anything they can charge them for, or that surveillance technology allows them to do this more easily?

EA-3167 3y ago
I don't know, do they? I'm still waiting for someone to reply with concrete examples of systemic abuse, not this kind of emotive nonsense.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Yeah this definitely comes across as a totally neutral and curious disposition about it. Police abuses against dissidents and disinherited is widespread and well documented if you're not actively trying not to discover it. It's not other people's responsibility to do this work for you especially once you've gone out of your way to frame the very idea as "emotive nonsense."
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    If these systemic abuses based on technology are so easy to find, why are you and others replying to me so bad at producing them?
    - giraffe_lady 3y ago
      Because like I said it's not our responsibility to. You're openly hostile to the idea of them existing and no one is obligated to talk you out of the cowardice you appear happy to inhabit.
      - EA-3167 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - Georgelemental 3y ago

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

Hmm. I seem to recall discussion here on HN, just yesterday, about the FBI misusing their surveillance power 280,000 times in a year. Is that enough non-hypothetical for you?

EA-3167 3y ago
Not really, if you get into the story it's much less about abusing technology, and much more about abusing FISA courts. I also think that said courts releasing a public reprimand for that behavior is precisely the sort of accountability and transparency you don't get it in authoritarian regimes. The system isn't working perfectly by any means, but it isn't some techno-fascist hellscape. You could remove the technology from the story entirely and it would be the same.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  You asked if the technology is actually used this way. The answer is, yes, it is (or at least similar abilities are misused in a similar way). > Not really, if you get into the story it's much less about abusing technology, and much more about abusing FISA courts. It's about law enforcement having easy access to information that they're not supposed to use unless they have good reason to, and them using the information even when they don't have good reason to. > I also think that said courts releasing a public reprimand for that behavior is precisely the sort of accountability and transparency you don't get it in authoritarian regimes. True, though I would have preferred denying those requests in the first place. > The system isn't working perfectly by any means, but it isn't some techno-fascist hellscape. Yet. You seem to be attacking the thesis "these tools can only lead us to techno-fascism". But how about the converse thesis: "When fascism shows up, it will inevitably use these tools. And therefore we should be cautious about building these tools, and allowing the authorities to use them." > You could remove the technology from the story entirely and it would be the same. Without the technology, the data would not be (ab)used on anything like the same scale. Look, I'm not entirely opposed to law enforcement having information available when they need it. But we keep expecting them to only use it when they have legally-recognized good reason, and they keep going well beyond that. We should know by now that there will be too many people in law enforcement who will attempt to abuse the process and subvert the limitations, and we should start thinking seriously about how to prevent that. Whether "we can't prevent that (well enough)" is grounds for not building the tools at all is a different question, one we are not forced to answer quite yet. We should at least start at "how can we make these (much) harder to abuse".

BryantD 3y ago

This may or may not qualify for you: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/new-report-shows-department-of-homeland-security-gathered-intel-on-portland-black-lives-matter-protestors https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/new-report-shows-departm... Here’s why it counts for me. It’s not scary new tech, but it is a case that shows that police departments will be as aggressive as possible about collecting data. This isn’t “cops are bad.” Most of us would do the same thing, as evidenced by the endless thirst for data that most tech companies have. When there’s a way to learn more about something, humans tend to lean into it rather than worrying about inchoate potential misuse.

EA-3167 3y ago
I feel like I'm not getting my point across very well. I'm not skeptical that law enforcement will seek to gather all of the info it can, just like the NSA does, I'm asking where the dystopian hellscape is as a result of this. Where are the comedians being banned like they are in China? Where is the social credit score? Where are the disappearances? Everyone seems to be offering, "Think of how bad it could be," but most of their examples center on right wing politics rather than technology.
- BryantD 3y ago
  Okay, that’s fair —- thanks for clarifying! My feeling is that once you start compiling this data in a formal way, you’ve taken a significant step towards the dystopian events you’re describing. I agree that the ability to do a thing is not the same as the thing happening. However, exactly as I try and remove the ability to make manual mistakes from my deployment pipelines, I also think it’s good to restrict the ability to impose dystopian rules. But that is a really big topic and I am not expecting you to say “oh yeah you’re right” just because I made a dubious analogy. I appreciate that you took the time to clarify.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    The feeling is mutual, it's good to see that there's still the possibility of mutually respectful discussion on this topic. Thank you.

kevviiinn 3y ago

The dystopia already exists, you just happen to be one of the lucky ones that it isn't impacting as much

salawat 3y ago

It never comes because we fight it. If you stop fighting it, and let it gain ground, it is an inevitability. There is a reason why back in Lincoln's day, the preservation of Liberties for fiture generations was extolled to a near religious degree. The transfer of fewer liberties between generations is hard to notice, as the incoming generation is removed from the state where the apparatus was not around. This is why Jefferson wanted sunset dates on everything, so every group would have to fully come to grips with why things are the way they are instead of going with Madison's view of a state of affairs where "deference to the dead" was the norm and an eventual State where all the laws in existence were handed down or made on the basis of the lives of people who are long dead. Governments should serve the living. Not the dead. Governing is hard. Anyone who jumps into it thinking otherwise is a fool.

ROTMetro 3y ago

I'm not doing research for someone as disingenuous as you (sorry I don't have a canned response file for reference on Government overreach/abuses) but this was a discussion on this website just yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36041059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36041059 I'm pretty sure since you made your way to Hacker New you can also Google the relevant information you are asking other who came to a random article to somehow have already compiled for you.

EA-3167 3y ago
[flagged]

kornhole 3y ago

These incremental steps are imperceptible by design. We already live in a dystopia, but most do not perceive what is happening on many fronts.