Big Brother Is Watching!

[jadewik]

Has the era of Winston finally found it's way into the 21-st century?

I read this article over at BBC News that says they now have the technology to ID people's height, weight, face, and gait with video and computers. Essentially, once you're in the system, they can find you in a crowd.

The Article

[Garbageman Igor]

facial recognition has been in use for years but this is crazy. all those sci fi movies about the future are coming true *shudder*

the most insanely ridiculous thing is the computerized translation software... if they can ever get that to work in real time that will make someone billions. the see through walls technology scares me tho. they said that you can tell if someone wants to harm you because their heart rate is up and thats a dangerous way to think. its like a polygraph, it cant differentiate between emotions, but they interpret the results as something specific anyway.

[Carzal]

Too much government control is a bad thing, due to the possibilities of abuse, but... I don't have huge problems with it so far.

[Curulan]

The very fact that this technology exists frightens me.

[jadewik]

The very fact that this technology exists frightens me.

Me too. Me too.

[Carzal]

*shakes head* Being able to tell what people are thinking is pretty sci-fi, and you can only go so far with breathing rates, heart beats and other signs of what people are thinking. Even at the extreme, they would have to be literally reading the different places where neurons are firing in your brain.
And whats wrong with technology that can do this? How does it frighten you?

[jadewik]

What's wrong with it?

In one sense-- NOTHING. The technology is cool. However, it's how it is or could be used that is scary. If you look back into history, you'll see a periodic increase in government monitoring of people. "Spying" in a sense. What you think is private, isn't... and it's even less that way with this new technology.

You've seen "Minority Report" right? Tom Cruise's character has to have his eyeballs changed so he can actually go places without being seen. This new technology is a lot like that.... the more your identity is tracked, the less freedom you have... and the easier it is to track people, the less able we will be able to defend ourselves against possible future tyrants.

You see authors write about this sort of thing ALL THE TIME. "Anthem" by Ayn Rand. Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm"... where "all animals are created equal but some are more equal than others." Huxley's "Brave New World" has similar undertones. Same with Bradbury and "Fahrenheit 451"...

... if people write about such things A LOT... it makes you wonder.

... and the scary thing about all this new technology is seeing some of these author's books come to real fruition. THAT, my friend, is what's scary.

You think of the good all you want... but I am conscious of the bad that could result.

[Curulan]

In this case, the potential for bad greatly outweighs the potential for good.

I do not want my (essential) liberties compromised in the name of (temporary) security.

[Carzal]

*shakes head*
Bad can result from pretty well anything. For that matter, why have microwaves or cell phones when they have been basically proven to incrase peoples chances of cancer?
Personally, I don't mind if the government bugs my phone. Who cares if they can hear what I'm doing, know where I'm going?
The thing is, if a totalitarian government gets into power in western countries, they can only do that through an incredibly powerful cult of personality through the military, and a hell of alot of money. Certain basic democratic ideals have been ingrained into western culture with a jack-hammer; the most traumatizing event the world has seen, World War Two, was essentially a war (in the beginning at least) between democratic nations and a nation where democracy had been curtailed. Right after that, the Cold War lasted for a good fifty years, and one of the main elements of that was that in the Soviet Union, people did not have the right to self determination.
Does this mean that a dictator couldn't take over England, France, Canada, the U.S.? Of course not. What it does mean is that in order for someone to do that they need much more support from the military and much more wealth than you would need in a country with little or no history of democratic ideals, such as, say, China. Or North Korea.
And if the government already has such incredible military control, there is little that you can do already, aside from mass uprisings, which cameras wouldn't be able to stop.

Meanwhile, this technology advances the governments ability to keep the peace, which is it's primary concern; to create a stable society and keep order within it. In London, they have cameras everywhere. Studies have shown that crime has decreased, and arrests, which went up initially, have gone down as people become aware of being watched. And on top of that, the fact is that international terrorism is advancing at a frightening rate as more and more weapons technology is developed. Whether it is suitcase nukes or the black plague, whether it is the IRA, Al'Qaida or the FLQ, it's dangerous and the larger world population gets (as well as the more the western governments benefit while third world countries struggle), the more likely terrorism is.

[jadewik]

Ah... but the abuse of civil rights isn't something that just happens over night, Carzal. It happens little by little until one day you wake up and you can't eat, breathe, or do anything without the government knowing what it is, how much, where you got it, and where it's going.

Look back to the 1940's if you need an example. Do you think Stalin woke up one day and said, "Hey, I think I'll kill 60k people today"? Do you think the Russians thought, "By Jove, today's a good day to let Stalin kill off my family right in front of me"? I seriously doubt it.

Technology is great and all... but I don't want anyone to know where I am all the time. It's not their damned business what I do in my free time so long as what I do does not infringe on the civil liberties of others around me.

[Carzal]

First of all, it's not an abuse of civil rights to know where you are.
As for the Russian example, as I said, they had no history of democracy, meaning it was not ingrained into their world-view like it is here. When a president can justify a couple wars on the basis that they are "bringing democracy" to the invaded countries, you've got something deeply intertwined with the world view of the the West.
And Stalin basically did just wake up and decide to kill people; he was Stalin, that's what he did. He had an enormous cult of personality, and total support of a powerful military. And hey! He was able to restrict civil liberties without all of that technology, he just went around and had purges when he was bored.
On top of that, the government knowing where you are all the time... if that infringes on you doing things, than thats bad. If it doesn't, then it doesn't matter. And no one is going to be assigned to just watching over you and spying on your entire life: in the United States you've got almost 300 million people for them to watch. That's a fracking lot. Seriously, try counting to 300 million.
A million seconds is eleven days.

And you are right; they don't care what you are doing in your free time as long as you are not infringing on the liberties of others. Thats what the system is for; to make sure that people do not infringe on the liberties of others.

[James]

The system is flawed.

I'd be prepared to make an argument to defend it if anyone disagrees but I am sick so I'll probably forget about this.