alt Hacker News> There are dozens if not 100s of ways that mass surveillance can improve human life.
There are dozens of ways living in a cage can improve human life.
You won't be exposed to dangerous ideas and you might get a calorie allowance. There's little danger of an unwanted pregnancy, and you might be given labor-related chores or exercises to occupy your time.
The danger with all of these systems is what happens when they are abused. That's not a matter of if, just a matter of when.
We are building a cage around society. It's so slow you don't realize the shackles being placed around your ankle and your neck. But one day, when it's too late to protest, the switch will be flipped.
We're already living in 1984. We are always just a few election cycles away from 1934.
One specific example: device attestation and Web Environment Integrity, combined with the internet being increasingly controlled or mediated by a handful of middlemen who would absolutely love to turn this on (Cloudflare, Apple, Google, etc) but if they do it too early there’ll be revolt.
It’s had a couple attempts that got shot down so far, but the pushback gets weaker as time goes on, and as the troublesome/less-compliant generations age out and get replaced by generations who’ve grown up accepting this stuff as the water they swim in.