# What if everything everyone did was recorded and visible to everybody? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 24, 2014, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649 "2014-01-24T22:44:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/41 "2014-02-01T15:32:28Z")
It would be a better world if it included telepathy. People would be able to EXPERIENCE the suffering of the poor and middle class. And the lack of suffering of the rich. I suspect the rich would move to ameliorate the suffering of the poor just out of simple self-defense. Oh, and any wealthy conservatives or libertarians who tried any of this “lucky ducks” shit would drowned in a wall of experience. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/42 "2014-02-03T11:08:57Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > It would be a better world if it included telepathy. People would be able to EXPERIENCE the suffering of the poor and middle class. And the lack of suffering of the rich. I suspect the rich would move to ameliorate the suffering of the poor just out of simple self-defense. Oh, and any wealthy conservatives or libertarians who tried any of this “lucky ducks” shit would drowned in a wall of experience. Hmm, that might be the case if it was _compulsory_ telepathy; I rather doubt that many people would deliberately subject themselves to experiencing the suffering of others. But compulsory telepathy would be a terrible, _terrible_ thing. For starters, everyone within a given radius around a car accident would be too busy screaming in agony to be able to help. Doctors would be literally incapable of doing their jobs. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/43 "2014-02-03T18:25:48Z")
> [@ekedolphin](#): > > I’d worry about intellectual property. People would see movies as they’re being made, and books as they’re being written. Presumably there’d no longer be such a thing as intellectual property _or_ it would be rigidly enforced. After all, everyone can _see_ that you’re watching the movie being made, and society could choose to charge you for that privilege. > [@](#): > > Students would be able to look up the answers to every test, and rip off the straight-A student’s dedicated project. But, again, everyone can see that they’re doing so, so enforcement is easy if that’s something that you want to protect. > [@](#): > > With so much video to watch, how’s the teacher to know who cheated whom? Timestamps? The teacher doesn’t need to watch it all. The wronged student will gladly do that research. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/44 "2014-02-03T23:26:34Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > We’d all either have to get a lot more circumspect about what we say or get a much thicker skin. In this scenario, it’s a brain implant. Merely thinking it is something the other party could find out. You might as well just say whatever you are thinking 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/45 "2014-02-03T23:36:32Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > It would be a better world if it included telepathy. People would be able to EXPERIENCE the suffering of the poor and middle class. And the lack of suffering of the rich. The interesting thing is that this may not be true. Some psych theories say that people “normalize” their experiences. It would be fascinating to find out if this were true. You might watch a few hours of the “life and times of Billy the bum”, experiencing the incredible joy he gets when he manages to get a shower or find a whole bunch of spare change. You might find that relatively speaking, the life of “Richey Rich” is no better. Maybe the wine served at dinner is a sour vintage, and the only model he can find to sleep with is a low class softcore porn model. Maybe Richy is out of blow, and is getting terrible withdraw symptoms. I’m just saying : it might not be as clear cut a difference as you would expect. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/46 "2014-02-04T01:35:25Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > In this scenario, it’s a brain implant. Merely thinking it is something the other party could find out. You might as well just say whatever you are thinking 🙂 There could still be… I guess you’d call them societal standards of propriety that make it ok to think something but not ok to say it. Privacy is very much a social construct. There are all kinds of situations where you observe something (or could) but pretend you don’t (or choose not to). In the locker room, it’s no big deal to see other naked people, but it’s quite rude to stare or comment. It could end up that society decides that peoples’ thoughts are generally private, and, aside from a few weirdos and criminals (and certain special circumstances like therapy or criminal trials), people would no more look through your record of thoughts than they would interrogate you about your last bowel movement. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2014, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/47 "2014-02-04T18:56:57Z")
I’m pretty sure that the “dystopian future” where everything you do is on camera, is already here. > [@Little Nemo](#): > > We’d all learn to poop in the dark. You haven’t heard of the Infrared John-Cam, I see. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/48 "2014-02-05T14:06:09Z")
I think this will come to pass in the medium to long term future, thanks to ubiquitous surveillance and advanced artificial intelligence. A sufficiently competent AI could observe any particular human in sufficient detail to register the physiological changes associated with various internal states, and deduce their thought processes. Not only will our everyday actions be observed and recorded, but also our internal states will be monitored and extrapolated. The science fiction author David Brin has written about the prospect of a so-called ‘Transparent Society’, where all our activities are watched as a matter of routine; he suggests that this can have a positive effect, _if_ the public can also observe those in power and make sure that they do their job honestly and fairly. This ‘surveillance from underneath’ is sometimes called ‘sousveillance’. More on the Transparent Society here > **[The Transparent Society](http://www.davidbrin.com/transparentsociety.html)** > > In THE TRANSPARENT SOCIETY: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?, David Brin examines the challenges of respecting privacy while monitoring security in the information age. More on sousveillance here > **[David Brin on the Path to Positive Sousveillance](https://hplusmagazine.com/2011/05/23/david-brin-on-the-path-to-positive-sousveillance/)** > > Now, 13 years after the publication of The Transparent Society, I was pleased to have the opportunity to pose David a couple questions about the potential future implications of sousveillance. I fo… The idea in the OP in this thread certainly seems to include the possibility of ‘sousveillance’ as well as surveillance; if we all know how everyone is behaving at all levels of society, then despotism as well as petty crime would both be much more difficult. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649/49 "2014-02-05T14:20:12Z")
Perhaps the most relevant passage is here; > [@](#): > > …if sousveillance became a reality, new patterns of social tact would likely evolve, and society and psychology would self-organize into some new configuration, which would leave people significant privacy in practice, but would also contain the everpresent potential of active sousveillance as a deterrent to misdoings. … if universal sousveillance means that all peeping toms are always caught in the act, then such a society might wind up with more privacy than you’d expect. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-everything-everyone-did-was-recorded-and-visible-to-everybody/679649.md?page=2)