[ExI] What surveillance solution is best - Orwellian, David Brin's, or ...?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 28/06/07, A B <austriaaugust at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Yeah, the cost will continue to get lower; but before
> today, the cost would still have been pretty
> significant. Placing and monitoring a "bug" in
> millions of homes is gonna cost some cheddar. And
> dictators often don't rule the richest of countries.

Not really, it's hard to think of a cheaper electronic device than a
short range radio transmitter, especially if it didn't have to be
small enough to hide. Any car driving around at any time could be an
unmarked government vehicle with a list of frequencies for different
addresses.

> Another thing that reduces the "benefit" side is that
> any conspirators could easily leave the
> house/equipment in order to plot.

Sure, but people who are really serious about their plot can always go
to a public place and speak in code or something. The idea is to make
it harder for plots to hatch; the fear factor alone of having bugs
everywhere and knowing that there are bugs everywhere would have to
have an effect.

Another factor is
> that foreign countries like the U.S. exert external
> influence (I'm not judging merit here, just stating a
> fact).

Yes, but why has it dissuaded countries from bugging everyone but not
from eg. killing a large proportion of their population, such as in
Cambodia or Rwanda? It seems to me that they feel they can justify
killing all the bad people, but balk at openly telling all of the
population that none of them are to be trusted and they will be
monitored at all times.

> IMO, the "best" solution to this whole conundrum is to
> get as many rational (and otherwise) people as
> possible, off this damn rock. Although gov's have
> strong influence here too, of course. What's the
> feasibility of creating a new self-supporting nation
> outside of this planet? I'm being serious. Will this
> ever be realistic or even possible?

I'm all for trying, but it will more than likely be Governments or -
even worse - large corporations doing the space colonizing. And even
if it were just a group of idealistic and like-minded individuals,
that's how all communities are in the beginning, and then they go bad.
What's the solution to stop a community going bad, ever?


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou