[extropy-chat] How to bring down repressive regimes...

[Chris Phoenix]

Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at gmail.com> wrote:
> It is also quite doubtful that an internal revolution could succeed
> and very likely it will not succeed without massive citizen
> casualties.

I think the goal is not revolution, but evolution.

 > It should also be noted that the same technology
 > purported to be a cure can be used in other applications for much
 > greater surveillance and control of the people.

Sure.  But they already have that advantage.  Giving everyone PDAs would 
help to level the playing field.  Of course, giving the government big 
database servers and training the troops to be intelligence-gathering 
agents using the PDAs would tip the field again.

I wonder whether a government that knew *everything* about its citizens' 
movements would tend to become more or less oppressive, and to what 
extent the answer depends on the personality of the leader, and on the 
structure of the government?  My impression is that England is about to 
try that experiment...

Chris

-- 
Chris Phoenix                                  cphoenix at CRNano.org
Director of Research
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology          http://CRNano.org