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More or less total surveillance and indefinite storage exists today. It takes very little creativity to imagine this being abused. Choose a few keywords, and y
by jivatmanx 13y ago
More or less total surveillance and indefinite storage exists today.
It takes very little creativity to imagine this being abused. Choose a few keywords, and you can easily identify everyone in the U.S. with any significant civil libertarian.
Once you've got the list, all you have to do is prevent these people from getting political power, and voila, 1984.
The robot thing definitely takes more creativity to think of than that.
More generally, I tend to think that all Brute Force methods are the most crude, and a last resort even in a tyranny.
- rayiner 13y agoIf you think that it takes an elite cadre of civil libertarians to protect the country from 1984-style dystopia, then surveillance is indeed a scary thing. But surveillance isn't going to do anything against broad-based public opposition. If you think the masses of ordinary people are capable of preventing a 1984-style dystopia through majoritarian mechanisms, then surveillance is a lot less scary.