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Ah interesting. I'm now colliding this thought with how unnerved I was by the tacit acceptance of very visible elements of the surveillance state in UK. I wonde
by patcon 2y ago
Ah interesting. I'm now colliding this thought with how unnerved I was by the tacit acceptance of very visible elements of the surveillance state in UK. I wonder if the state needed different tactics to make the population legible, and so (without express intention) needed to recruit citizens as more willing participants to reach the functional level of legibility...
- cjs_ac 2y agoIt's well known that about a third of all traffic speed cameras in the UK are decoys; I assume that something similar goes on with CCTV cameras. The British state is administered on the principle of maximum effect for least effort and least cost. The Empire was administered in the same way, although, as Lord North discovered, that principle has limits. The surveillance state is very visible because its primary purpose is deterrence, not solving crime at scale. The population isn't made legible; it's made to think that it's legible. A few years ago, there was a lot of media coverage about 'super recognisers'[0]. This is because CCTV footage has to be reviewed by humans. There's a reality TV series that shows how much human work has to go into turning the information from the surveillance state into actual outcomes on the ground.[1] It's not an everyday thing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_recogniser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_recogniser [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunted_(2015_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunted_(2015_TV_series)