Comment by 2ndorderthought
1 day ago
Nope. That's not how any of this is trending at all. Being optimistic is good for getting through tough times. Albeit sometimes. It might help people sleep at night but sleeping our way into technofacism won't make it any better for us or our children.
Did you have a better path forward?
I point to Michael Nielsen's commentary on Vulnerable World Hypothesis [1] again:
>do you think inexpensive, easy-to-follow recipes for building catastrophic technologies will one day be found, given sufficient understanding of science and technology?
With every increase in technology and science, the probability increases, and as a result, society will necessitate ever more surveillance. The reason provably beneficial surveillance is important to discuss is that we need a careful middle path between totalitarianism and outright catastrophe. It is the opposite of "sleeping our way" into technofascism.
1. https://michaelnotebook.com/vwh/index.html
I disagree on a fundamental level. Crime is down. It's been trending down since the 90s. The 90s to the early 2000s ushered in more technological change than the century prior as far as the common person is concerned.
There's no need for mass surveillance and there never will be.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.", spoken by someone who knew better and just so happened to help found this country.