@gojimotoro True, it generally hard to give absolutely indeterministic flow to them, but hopefully we can make classification flows like:
1. Analyze the issue
2. Choose action among predefined options
3. Call operator if situation is not clear
Only this can automate a ton of things!
This is a good post on the impact of surveillance in Iran:
https://t.co/1kT3SrsCyO
It's worth reading.
IMO one mistake that freedom advocates often make is that we talk about privacy violation and surveillance as "dystopian", using the word as a semantic stop sign: we know it means "bad", we nod along, and don't really go further to clarify why it's bad. I worry that this approach is long-run unhealthy: when we criticize various companies and countries for being "dystopian" and stop there, then to someone who's not already in the same memeplex, it sounds like we're basically criticizing companies and countries for not complying with our culture's aesthetic preferences. Which is ... duh, companies and countries are *supposed* to not comply with each other's aesthetic preferences, that's the whole point of the "pluralism" thing.
What the above article makes clear so well is that "dystopian" surveillance is not bad because it's "dystopian", it's bad because it makes a concrete property of the world worse: the power balance between individual and state. Surveillance enables an outcome where basically everyone other than police and security forces has no opportunity whatsoever to challenge the political status quo without being punished. This means an outcome where a political regime can remain in power forever, without satisfying more than a very small coalition of people who have the eyes and the guns (now drones).
The Dictator's Handbook talks about "large coalition" and "small coalition" governments; large coalition governments are the ones that are more pro-human, because they, well, have to keep a large coalition happy. Small coalition ones are the really nasty ones. Here is the near-term dark outcome of dictatorship + automated warfare + surveillance: a regime can literally survive with a coalition of size 1, because an army of all-seeing eyes and robots can defeat the entire populace in battle if needed. In Iran, we see what *just* dictatorship with surveillance can do, once you add automated police, you get to the unholy trifecta.
I don't know of a good solution to this. Privacy technology, as well as more work on censorship-resistant internet (I think we should strive for at least basic-quality internet, eg. 1 Mbps, being a global human right outside the domain of nation-state sovereignty), can help somewhat to reduce the possibility of total government control. But what else?
---
BTW one implicit frame in the article I take some issue with is framing Iran + Russia + China as the unique antagonists (both in surveillance they do internally, and in the technology they export to other countries). They do a lot of dystopian shit of both types. However, Israeli and US tech companies, and undoubtedly tech companies from other Western nations, also do a lot of dystopian shit.
Perhaps one key difference between the surveillance described above, and the Western type, is:
* The surveillance in the above article is about exercising *great control over a medium area*: you can see everything, but it requires active participation of the government of the territory being surveilled.
* The Israeli / US / Western flavor is about exercising *medium control over a great area*: there are more limits to how much they can do, but their surveillance is global: they know what people are doing even in countries and territories they have no presence in.
The distinction is not absolute: Israeli surveillance backstops a lot of its human rights abuse in Palestine, US surveillance reinforces ICE abuses (see the recent article about Homeland Security demanding social media firms reveal names of anti-ICE protesters), etc, and "transnational repression" is done by anti-Western countries. But *on average*, the above seems to be the pattern.
The two are differently scary. The former for the reasons I described above. The latter because it allows global projection of power: a politician or civil servant in one country now has to worry about being blackmailed, droned or otherwise attacked from other countries. The USA has shown willingness to go after individual EU officials, ICC officials (see recent articles on both), and others. Ultimately, I suspect that even democratic governments will want more privacy to protect themselves, and we will have to have deep conversations about what "democratic accountability" means: how can a civil servant be accountable to the people, but not accountable to foreign spooks?
My high-level frame is: privacy generally helps whoever is weaker. "Weaker" does not mean "moral": sometimes the weaker side is criminal. But in the 21st century, we are at serious risk of stronger factions using modern technologies to establish unbreakable lock-in to power. And so on average, reducing the gradient of power, giving the weak a fighting chance, is something that the world desperately needs.
Implementing this article's approach will remove gold as a value standard forever. Then, as technology progresses, it will take over platinum and silver. In the era of physical abundance, we may only construct virtual scarcity.
1/3 You could see a lot of posts from influencers accounts recently about zcash “value” and “price growth”.
It is not random.
It is not honest.
It is not about values.
We are facing one of the biggest collaborative pump just right now.
3/3 Zcash just loses any perk comparison to Monero, what ever thing you take:
Anonymity set.
Mining algorithm.
Amounts hiding.
Given all these endorsements, draw your own conclusions.
1/3 You could see a lot of posts from influencers accounts recently about zcash “value” and “price growth”.
It is not random.
It is not honest.
It is not about values.
We are facing one of the biggest collaborative pump just right now.
2/3 Old tech zcash with a limited anonymity pool is being actively promoted by @naval@CryptoHayes@mert@vikrantnyc@Snowden(!!) @balajis and others.
They just started pushing ZEC synchronized!
Ironically, ZEC is one of the worst coins for privacy..
I'm thrilled to be part of @VDS_event!
See you in Valencia on October 22-23 for the 8th edition of VDS, the global tech event for leading startups, corporates, and investors
Join me at #VDS2025! https://t.co/jNKMGy2XJ6
Thrilled to snag 1st place at the @ICPHUBS WCHL25 Regional Round with my rockstar co-founder @norfolkik! 🏆
Massive shoutout to @icphub_CA and @quantumleaplab for organizing an epic hackathon. If you're a blockchain developer looking to build your next project, ICP offers unmatched support! 🌐
@gojimotoro@SaidAitmbarek You even can’t imagine how bad big corp money earning machines(ads) engines! I have 3 different google ads accounts each of them are stack because of a different bug 🤮
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