[extropy-chat] Transparency vs. terrorism

[Samantha Atkins]

On Aug 6, 2005, at 7:20 PM, Technotranscendence wrote:
>> When a LOL sees something suspicious, they
>> push the "alert" button. The problem is flashed
>> to a hundred other LOSs at random, and if at
>> least ten of then agree that a problem exists,
>> the alert for the camera is flashed to the
>> professionals.
>>


Great, we all get recorded and reported on by thousands of Mrs Grundy  
types or worse.   How is this different from TIPS, from turning  
everyone into a spy on their neighbors?

>> As the program becomes more mature, we
>> can use really dumb automatic filtering to
>> remove most of the cameras from
>> consideration most of the time. Even a simple
>> motion detector would increase the LOL
>> productivity by a factor of ten or more.
>>
>
> What's to stop the system from being abused?  I can just see
> criminals -- including the government -- selectively blacking out  
> areas.
> I can also see attention being directed at undesirables of all sorts.
> Such a system is likely to only add power to already too powerful  
> nation
> states.  Now, you might claim this is not so bad, that we can trust  
> the
> current crop of politicians and functionaries not to abuse such power
> too much.

hahahahaha.  Yeah, right.


>   But what happens with the next crop?  And the one after that?
> What happens when, after you've laid the foundations for a  
> totalitarian
> state, one is actually erected upon those foundations?  I predict that
> then the terrorism will not be retail but wholesale, but none will be
> calling it such.
>
> I'm amazed so few others on this list have such concerns.  I  
> expected a
> storm of protest.  Along with libertarianism, has a healthy protective
> attitude toward liberty been exorcised from the list?

I have brought up these and other problems with "the transparent  
society" many times.  Usually I am told I am bringing up things  
already long ago dealt with and most voices go back to extolling the  
virtues of such a state and ignoring the many dangers.  These is  
consistent with a general default position of assuming anything that  
can be done with technology that is not an obvious initiation of  
force is good and anything that is said against any such should be  
held as suspicious and not fully addressed or swept under a rug.  I  
am all for the ability of all people to record anything and  
everything they witness.  But that does not mean that we don't have  
considerable work to do to avoid quite nasty unintended consequences.

- samantha