The US will tend to totalitarianism with probability 1

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=xtisme]
No…not a chance. The processing power alone is beyond your comprehension. One of my customers who I do a lot of consulting for is a video security customer. I build out their network systems for their newer IP based monitoring networks. Even the top of the line best systems take a LOT of bandwidth to get any kind of resolution thats usable…not to mention tons of disk space even with compression.
[/QUOTE]

You are not thinking far enough into the future.

If they had told people in 1950 that everyday consumers would be buying PCs with a terabyte of disk space, or if you had told them that images of the entire earth would be digitized and available on an average consumer PC (i.e. Google Earth), they would think you’re insane.

(even before you got that far, they’d ask “images? on a computer?”)

If technology advances far enough, you won’t need humans to monitor all these video feeds. It can be all automated.

Today’s state of the art software. Who said I was referring only to today’s technology?

Do you have kids or grandkids? Do you care if something like this happens in their lifetimes?

I did not say otherwise.

22

[QUOTE=Polerius]
If they had told people in 1950 that everyday consumers would be buying PCs with a terabyte of disk space, or if you had told them that images of the entire earth would be digitized and available on an average consumer PC (i.e. Google Earth), they would think you’re insane.
[/QUOTE]

Well…sure. Its like saying ‘You aren’t thinking far enough into the future. One day mankind will be able to go to the stars at or above the speed of light. In the 50’s they had space craft that could only go a few times the speed of sound. Now we have a craft that can go 38,000 mph. If you had told them then that we could do that they would think you insane.’

I know what the technology can do today. I can see how that is and will progress. What you are suggesting is so outside of that you might as well be claiming we will equal or exceed the speed of light. Unless there is a fundamental change in how images are captured, traverse the network and are stored and processed its simply impossible.

[QUOTE=Polerius]
If technology advances far enough, you won’t need humans to monitor all these video feeds. It can be all automated.
[/QUOTE]

Sure…if you want to project things out into the far distant future. Computers themselves (let alone the image capture and network technologies) would have to undergo a fundamental change to allow it…but someday (after I’m long gone) its possible.

[QUOTE=Polerius]
Today’s state of the art software. Who said I was referring only to today’s technology?
[/QUOTE]

Well, I thought you were trying to keep it in the realm of possibility. If we are speculating about future technology, then sure. Maybe someday every surface (walls, ceiling, toilet, dog, fan, etc) will have nanotechnology receptors in them and be able to report back in real time via an air network with googlebyte bandwidth to a supercomputer built in the core of the planet the size of the moon that can think and process all that data. It could happen.

But it ain’t going to happen tomorrow…or in my lifetime. Neither would you be able to put up enough camera’s OR have the network OR processing power to have such a ubiquitous monitoring network in my lifetime. Its not possible even considering how quickly technology is growing. You could do a system like the Brits have (its a smaller country and they don’t have cameras everywhere)…but on a continential scale and as intrusive as you are saying? No way.

[QUOTE=Polerius]
Do you have kids or grandkids? Do you care if something like this happens in their lifetimes?
[/QUOTE]

I have kids…I certainly care. I care if an asteroid hits the earth too. I just don’t think its highly likely.

-XT

23

Well, since the United States will not last forever, the probability of the establishment of an authoritarian government in the US is less than 1.

Thing is, brutal totalitarian governments are weak. I mean, for some people brutality is fun, they’re sadists and they engage in brutality for brutality’s sake. And history has shown that sadists who find themselves in a position of power can inflict enormous cruelty. But most dictators and strongmen aren’t literally insane people. They may be cruel, but usually the cruelty serves some sort of purpose: perpetuating their power. Of course, authoritarian regimes rely on sadists in lower level positions to carry out the actual tortures and disappearances, and the normal people in the secret police are relieved to hand over such unpleasant duties to those that enjoy it.

But in a world of ubiquitous surveillance, there’s no need for harsh repression. Such a world is much more “Brave New World” than “1984”. What’s the POINT of a boot smashing a human face, forever? Even if Big Brother is a sadist, he’s still a mortal man. How does he ensure that a sadist succeeds him? Does he even care that a sadist succeeds him?

A rational dictator is only as repressive as neccesary. So given perfect information and perfect control and rational actors, the optimum amount of repression is zero. You never need to repress anything, because resistance is futile, so the dictator doesn’t have to worry about repressing anyone. A Saddam Hussein will torture and murder thousands, because he’s constantly living in fear that his slaves will revolt. If the slaves have no ability to revolt there’s no need to torture or murder anyone, everything is handled in a civilized manner, and anyone who doesn’t like it can move to Tahiti with the rest of the malcontents and stop bothering everyone else.

24

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
But in a world of ubiquitous surveillance, there’s no need for harsh repression.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, there is no need for harsh behavior, though, if the cameras capture you organizing an anti-government rally or coup, you will simply be “disappeared”.

Whether they do it in a sadistic way, or simply shoot you, is their choice, but the current need for torture (to extract information about any comrades and plans you may have) will not be there, as they will know almost everything anyway.

Not sure of the history of North Korea too much, but wasn’t Kim Jong-il preceded by his father and already has his son lined up to succeed him? So it’s not that hard to find a successor to your totalitarian rule. (whether these guys are sadists or not is not relevant to whether they are totalitarian leaders)

But what if one day someone says something against the government? You should have some way of dealing with them. It need not be torture, but you can’t have people talking against the government because they might find some like-minded people and gather for a protest, and if you allow that they may try to organize a revolt, at which point you have to step in and stop it by force. The point is, you will have to step in at some point and stop this from escalating.

With total information awareness, the best way is to stop it at the very beginning, since it will affect (and piss off) the fewest number of people.

25

I think with (theoretical) perfect monitoring and information there would be no need to do anything more than share that information with the public at large. For instance, if the government (or this superbrain computer) decided that citizen X was a threat to public safety all they would REALLY have to do is make the public aware that citizen X frequents alt.sex.farmanimal.com (not a real URL…just made that one up) or some other distasteful aspect of their personal life. Information would be the ‘torture’ and public censure would be the punishment. Electronic shunning perhaps.

Nothing so crude as real torture is needed if the government has perfect information on all aspects of every citizens life.

-XT

26

Right, but you don’t need to “disappear” that person. You just send them an email that you didn’t appreciate the unkind and untrue things they said about the Leader, and if they want to get ahead they need to change their attitude.

If the person doesn’t respond to the email, the situation escalates. Restricting their allowance or limiting internet use to homework-only, no games or social networking , is an option. If they still act like a jerk, you can take away their car keys. I doubt it will get as nasty as posting unflattering videos of them on “America’s Funniest Traitors”.

27

I think it is going to have to turn into a totalitarian government or turn into a madhouse with technology going the way it is. (as much as I love technology and want MORE of it, I have come to this conclusion)

Just look at all the outrages of people filming crooked cops and such and posting it on YouTube. Eventually you have an outrage-ocracy in which the government is tied up defending hundreds if not thousands of their employees or busy trying them, or the government bans hand-held cameras and the like, gives policeman MORE power and freedom from investigation, etc, etc, and it is not far from there to a totalitarian government.

28

Either that or we just get used to things as they are, instead of how we’d like to pretend they are.

So rather than pretending that no one uses marijuana and arresting anyone who smokes pot, we give up on pot smoking being a crime. Rather than pretending that anyone who looks at porn on the internet is a pervert, we realize that everyone looks at porn on the internet and there’s no sense getting upset about it. We don’t have to freak out because a Senator solicited sex in airport men’s room, because that Senator’s sex life will have been an open book since he hit puberty.

We won’t get upset by video after video of cops beating the crap out of some guy, because the cops will be used to the idea that–just like everyone else–every second of every day their actions are being monitored. And the cops will LIKE it, because now all the bullshit police brutality claims will vanish and only the real ones will remain. Now, sometimes Wayne Brady’s gonna hafta taze a bro, but when that happens we’ll all give the cops a medal rather than freak out.