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We know that people behave better when they're accountable for what they do and say, and worse when they're not. For some definition of "better" that's probabl
by Amadou 13y ago
We know that people behave better when they're accountable for what they do and say, and worse when they're not.
For some definition of "better" that's probably true.
We also know that feeling like they have no privacy causes people to stop taking risks - creative, financial, personal, etc.
A world with massive surveillance is a world of joyless automatons and basically zero social progress.
- quantumpotato_ 13y agoOnly automatons if people ACCEPT being watched and self-censor. A recent post suggested that without secret communication, much social progress wouldn't have come about. Consider this though: a surveillance world where people break the law en masse - London Street Riots, 4/20 (see tumblr, reddit) in the USA.
- leot 13y agoI think this is true for most definitions of "better". Our definitions of good, in the first place, are learned, reinforced, and enforced, from observing social norms. In their absence (as we get on Freenet, Tor, 4chan, etc.) we see people behaving much more anti-socially much more often. Society, culture, and cooperation are almost entirely responsible for the wealth we've accumulated and were born into. (Potential) social scrutiny and the internalization of social norms are required for ensuring that people behave in ways that don't hurt others. When this scrutiny comes from Big Brother then, yes, we have horrible tyranny. When it emerges, messily, from the intersecting interests and values of the crowd, then the outcome tends to be pretty good.