4 ms·

The point is to come to acceptance with the possibility that yeah, someone is watching me or you or our loved ones probably most of the time. If you are a celeb

by firtoz 3y ago

The point is to come to acceptance with the possibility that yeah, someone is watching me or you or our loved ones probably most of the time. If you are a celebrity you have no privacy anyway, and if you are a regular person you are too boring to watch, so, either way, not too much of a problem. If the people in power have the personality disorders or tendencies to abuse their power then they hopefully won't be in office, because maybe someone else who watched them takes note of that, but sure, sometimes it happens. If they do abuse their power and get caught, then they should no longer have that power, eventually.

etrautmann 3y ago
But this capability gives so much power to someone with authority to abuse it to remain in power…
- firtoz 3y ago
  That is correct, and it's wrong, but as a regular citizen, it's safer to assume that this is the world we live in now, and prepare accordingly, than to assume otherwise and get caught by surprise.
  - soco 3y ago
    I cannot imagine what preparations can be made but since you have given it a thought, I'm very eager to hear. Maybe we can all benefit, who knows.
    - firtoz 3y ago
      So... I follow Buddhism. The best thing is to be at peace with yourself, and accept that no matter what happens, everything is okay. Including death, loss of all material things, loss of sanity, imprisonment, and so on. This goes for yourself and also for your family. Then you become invincible. All of those things become only inconveniences. Sure, it'd not be nice to have them, so you can do something about them, especially your family or loved ones may feel sad more than you, because they may not think like you even if you may come to this kind of thinking. I know that some people cannot do this and they think it's stupid or impossible, which is fair enough, it's too different from their upbringing and societal conditioning and so on. So let's say you still have chances to be devastated by a few of those things. Now, let's continue with the assumption that "people in power" have the capacity to watch everyone, including each other. KGB of Chernobyl series style. You can try to find out, as much as reasonable, what's the actual likelihood of your being affected by a particular thing you may worry about. And, decide, how much that would inconvenience you. Then, you try your reasonable best to reduce the chances of that happening, and also the impacts of it. If it's almost guaranteed to happen, for a moment, pretend that it already has happened. Let the emotions sink in, try to think beyond the emotions. What do you think would be the effects, to you and the people you care about? Can you do anything to reduce those effects? And so on. It's impractical to do this for "everything that can happen", of course, so you can start with identifying your greatest worries and applying the process for them until your worries about those are reduced enough. And when other worries start surfacing more, apply the same process for them, too.
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      > I cannot imagine what preparations I can, And it's very ugly and scary. Go read the psychological literature on what happens when groups (of animals as well as humans) are put under sustained overt surveillance (not covert surveillance - they need to "feel" watched). Clue: it activates the "predators about" part of the limbic brain. Such a population is essentially a powder-keg in a pre-revolutionary state. For humans, on the surface it's all sweetness and smiles because social regulation (Freudian superego) keeps the lid on... for a while. That part of the brain cannot be "trained out of it" so it cannot be "normalised". One cannot "make surveillance acceptable" because we have an innate aversion to it. This is why in Bentham's design of the Panopticon the key feature of it is that nobody knows for sure they're being watched. Remove that limitation and surveillance is massively counterproductive and dangerous to everyone. It's such a shame people don't read more about history, anthropology and human psychology before making parochial; statements about "the world we now live in" or what they think "people should accept". Before doing that it helps to research what _people_ really are, rather than go on personal gut instinct,
      - firtoz 3y ago
        The British are still able to have their tea without losing their shit. The psychological literature you are reading are written by people who are greatly motivated to produce such impactful conclusions. Life in reality is not that dramatic.
        nonrandomstring 3y ago
        Aha, the old "Scientists are motivated to disagree with my worldview". Good luck dealing with your "reality".
        firtoz 3y ago
        Not all scientists. However we need to admit that quite a lot of them can be biased. Psychology has a serious reproducibility problem.

by firtoz 3y ago

etrautmann 3y ago

But this capability gives so much power to someone with authority to abuse it to remain in power…

firtoz 3y ago
That is correct, and it's wrong, but as a regular citizen, it's safer to assume that this is the world we live in now, and prepare accordingly, than to assume otherwise and get caught by surprise.
- soco 3y ago
  I cannot imagine what preparations can be made but since you have given it a thought, I'm very eager to hear. Maybe we can all benefit, who knows.
  - firtoz 3y ago
    So... I follow Buddhism. The best thing is to be at peace with yourself, and accept that no matter what happens, everything is okay. Including death, loss of all material things, loss of sanity, imprisonment, and so on. This goes for yourself and also for your family. Then you become invincible. All of those things become only inconveniences. Sure, it'd not be nice to have them, so you can do something about them, especially your family or loved ones may feel sad more than you, because they may not think like you even if you may come to this kind of thinking. I know that some people cannot do this and they think it's stupid or impossible, which is fair enough, it's too different from their upbringing and societal conditioning and so on. So let's say you still have chances to be devastated by a few of those things. Now, let's continue with the assumption that "people in power" have the capacity to watch everyone, including each other. KGB of Chernobyl series style. You can try to find out, as much as reasonable, what's the actual likelihood of your being affected by a particular thing you may worry about. And, decide, how much that would inconvenience you. Then, you try your reasonable best to reduce the chances of that happening, and also the impacts of it. If it's almost guaranteed to happen, for a moment, pretend that it already has happened. Let the emotions sink in, try to think beyond the emotions. What do you think would be the effects, to you and the people you care about? Can you do anything to reduce those effects? And so on. It's impractical to do this for "everything that can happen", of course, so you can start with identifying your greatest worries and applying the process for them until your worries about those are reduced enough. And when other worries start surfacing more, apply the same process for them, too.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    > I cannot imagine what preparations I can, And it's very ugly and scary. Go read the psychological literature on what happens when groups (of animals as well as humans) are put under sustained overt surveillance (not covert surveillance - they need to "feel" watched). Clue: it activates the "predators about" part of the limbic brain. Such a population is essentially a powder-keg in a pre-revolutionary state. For humans, on the surface it's all sweetness and smiles because social regulation (Freudian superego) keeps the lid on... for a while. That part of the brain cannot be "trained out of it" so it cannot be "normalised". One cannot "make surveillance acceptable" because we have an innate aversion to it. This is why in Bentham's design of the Panopticon the key feature of it is that nobody knows for sure they're being watched. Remove that limitation and surveillance is massively counterproductive and dangerous to everyone. It's such a shame people don't read more about history, anthropology and human psychology before making parochial; statements about "the world we now live in" or what they think "people should accept". Before doing that it helps to research what _people_ really are, rather than go on personal gut instinct,
    - firtoz 3y ago
      The British are still able to have their tea without losing their shit. The psychological literature you are reading are written by people who are greatly motivated to produce such impactful conclusions. Life in reality is not that dramatic.
      - nonrandomstring 3y ago
        Aha, the old "Scientists are motivated to disagree with my worldview". Good luck dealing with your "reality".
        firtoz 3y ago
        Not all scientists. However we need to admit that quite a lot of them can be biased. Psychology has a serious reproducibility problem.