alt Hacker NewsSanta Claus for the very young; an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God for everyone else.
We have at least a several thousand year history of instilling a 'Panopticum[sic][1]-like psychology' in enormous swaths of society. More of the same.
1. please tell me this is a typo
Replies
pantalaimon • today at 2:24 PM
Soon we'll all be watched over by machines of loving grace.
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amenhotep • today at 3:29 PM
It's not "everyone" else though is it. Especially not in the recent decades where this surveillance has become a real thing.
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It's true that the idea of 'someone is watching you' is very old and a well-tested method of social control. The religious angle may be why so many people are receptive to mass surveillance today. But not everyone is religious, and those that are rarely live with a true, 24/7 feeling of dread and fear that someone is actually watching. The fear of consequences is very distant, and there is often forgiveness for small infractions. That fear becomes very different when you can put a face and a name to the people watching you, and you know they can affect your life in very real and immediate ways. This is the preconditioning that starts with childhood surveillance.