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> Dissidents and revolutionaries would hardly be able to do much.

Hence the scary question: Once the technology is available (now) and complete surveillance is implemented (soon), is there a going back?

A friend of mine speculated that total surveillance (and thus control) of society will eventually make the world consistent in logical terms.

Which necessarily makes it incomplete following Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Here completeness refers to diversity: to maximize completeness is to encourage genetic (and memetic) variation. If society is consistent, such a proposition becomes absurd.

It's an interesting thought experiment, and I don't think the consistent state is reversible. Luckily it requires that all of the world (intelligentsia) agree on the same set of rules, so there's still time.

Taking this argument to the extreme: perhaps the reason we haven't met civilisations from other worlds is simply that they all made the same logical error once the tech was available.

"Taking this argument to the extreme: perhaps the reason we haven't met civilisations from other worlds is simply that they all made the same logical error once the tech was available."

In the book _A Deepness in the Sky_, it is remarked that civilizations/governments that attempt to implement "ubiquitous law enforcement" are making a terrible mistake that always ends very poorly. It is, in the book, a marker of a society that is about to die.

I recommend the book.

I don't think so. There's no going back to the world that existed before nuclear weapons. Similarly, AI and surveillance tool advances are too useful and efficient for maintaining order, and there won't be going back to the world before them. They fundamentally change the way that law enforcement interacts with citizens at a high level.

This is a good question. I think the answer is "yes" with proviso that it would most likely come from the top.

The CCP, is not exactly a monolith. It has factions, some get suppressed, some come to prominence. One that saw the negative aspects as being too negative would have to come to prominence to undo the overreach.

Isn't it far more likely, given all we know, that western governments and elites will follow lead?

They are already heavy surveillance, and have a long history of suppressing dissidents (from labor massacres to McCarthyism, and from the '68 Democratic Convention and Kent State, to black rights demonstrations, OWS, and such -- to name but a few).

If they have such tools at their hands, they'll use them.

It's not a love for freedom that doesn't let them, but that without full enforcement, they risk having such measure come against them. But once full enforcement is feasible...

I think you are wrong. It will be hard to roll back any system which abolishes violent crime. The people will accept it as long as it not abused that much.

This is a tricky line of thinking. Once surveillance is there you can always hide behind the “now we’re safer”, the issue is that you can always survey more and always claim that going back would be less safe and so on and so forth. A good example for this is airport security. As far as I’m aware it’s quite unclear how effective all the security apparatus is yet it piled up over the years since 9/11, full body scans are now the norm etc. The question left to ask is: when is it too much? How much intrusion are we ready to bear for how much marginal safety gains?

It ultimately doesn’t matter much what we’re willing to bear. Those in power do not easily surrender tools that can keep them there.

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

Accuracy hasn't been a big deal for authoritarian governments and oppression anyway. I don't think they care. Outside of identifying risks associated with people who are close to people in power.... most authoritarian governments haven't seemed to worry about how much indiscriminate or inaccurate social punishment occurs, including China.

“The goal is algorithmic governance,” he added.

Given that the tech isn’t there, maybe the idea is just to say “the algorithm did it” on a national scale. The technology might not be worth much at doing more than providing much wanted pretext for arbitrary action.

Dissidents and revolutionaries would hardly be able to do much.

The main weapon of a dissident is public dissent. Mass surveillance doesn't directly prevent that.

the technology for face tracking/identification an action identification is definitely there?

I've wondered for a while if what you describe might be the next dark age. The last one was built on the use of religion in tandem with feudal power. The new dark age replaces religion with surveillance and scientific propaganda and feudalism with corporatism.

There has been a war-on-science going on for quite a while now, if there is a dark age coming I would fully expect that to be the real origin.

During the last dark age there was a war on religion, and precisely because control of religion was a major cornerstone of power. Being into Pagan, occult, non-mainstream Christian (e.g. Catharism, early Protestantism), or Judaism could get you jailed or killed in gruesome ways.

The "war on science" is not about stamping out science any more than the inquisition was about making people atheists. It's about eliminating lines of scientific inquiry that can be used to challenge power.

Perhaps this "war on science", however naive and inarticulate its proponents, is actually a war on the abuses of technology, such as the parent describes.

In which case, not only it's not the real origin of some upcoming dark age, but the last voice of freedom before it.

> Perhaps this "war on science", however naive and inarticulate its proponents, is actually a war on the abuses of technology, such as the parent describes.

No, it definitely isn't.

It's the willful and deceitful spreading of lies and portraying of scientists as bogeyman rather than the bringers of bad news. It's the purposeful act of dumbing down citizens and putting lies instead of facts in their heads to use 15 years down the line when those in school today become tomorrows voters.

That has absolutely nothing to do with abuses of technology (of which there are plenty, no argument there). The biggest abusers of tech tend to be those in power, closely followed by corporations, but the second is happy as long as they make bank, the first as long as they can use it to cement their position in power.

Look no further than what has happened at the EPA to get an idea of how incredible this whole story is.

There have been quite a few cases where "science" was used for "willful and deceitful spreading of lies".

See for example how now we find out that the whole "fats are bad for you, carbs are good" scientific "fact" was manufactured by the sugar industry.

This has infested the highest level of the scientific establishment (the american dietary recomandations), so you can't say that it was only the uninformed who were deceived.

yes, but that is most definitely NOT the point of the anti-science propaganda (moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth, etc.++).

The point of that nonsense is to sow distrust in all institutions, especially science. Since the susceptible people have no real idea about how science works, it's just swapping out one belief structure or another (even tho it's promoted as 'think for yourself', that doesn't work if you don't have the tools -- your ignorance is just as good as any experts' knowledge).

Once the actual experts are distrusted, any belief can be swapped in for these people, who are now useful idiots (in the Lennin sense).

>yes, but that is most definitely NOT the point of the anti-science propaganda (moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth, etc.++).

It's not its literal expression -- but it could very well be the point.

Those people don't opt for "moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth" because of the inherent value in those propositions.

There's a sentimental reason behind that attachment, and it has more to do with a distrust in science and "all institutions" that stems from the damage they've seen them do, and the lies those can say that affect their daily life.

A subsequent attachment to e.g. "moon hoax" is an extreme way to express that. Like a kid who rebels against their parents and becomes e.g. a neo-nazi, or takes heroin, but their real problem is that their dad beats mom, or mom is a control freak, or whatever.

In other words, these people opt for things like the "moon hoax conspiracy" in the same way that a society under some big fear opts for movies that represent this fear metaphorically (e.g. the Godzilla movies in post-Hiroshima Japan, or the zombie movies in the US https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/31/13440402/... ).

But one has to see beyond the surface to actually understand these people (and of course some are just nuts).

Right, two sides of the same...

You're talking about the 'pull-side', the psych reasons (beyond mere ignorance) that pull people into this crap.

I'm talking about the reasons behind the 'push-side', the reasons all this crap is produced & promoted, which is to harness all those latent problems into a weaponized political mass that can do real damage.

I disagree about the direction of cause and effect here. The distrust comes first, then people go for nutty "alternative fact" stuff.

We have many reasons to distrust our institutions. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. For starters in my life span I've watched us be consciously lied into one major $1T+ war, a series of bank bailouts that enriched those responsible for a financial crisis at the expense of the general public, the largest financial fraudster in recent memory (Bernie Madoff) being short-listed for SEC director prior to his scam collapsing, and countless cases of "science for hire" (nutritional science is the worst) being used to sell stuff.

I feel like our authorities are harping on "fake news" and related things to evade their own responsibility for this mess.

Right, the mistrust creates the fertile soil on which these conspiracy theories can grow & spread. And I completely agree that we have massive legitimate cause for mistrust.

But they don't create & promote the theories, then weaponize the believers.

E.g., you and I don't watch the scams, then go out & produce videos about how the world is flat, jet condensation trail are chemical sprays to kill us all, etc., etc..

That comes from sources truing to manipulate & weaponize the ambient discontent.

>I disagree about the direction of cause and effect here. The distrust comes first, then people go for nutty "alternative fact" stuff.

Exactly what I tried to say above.

One can ask eg. why people trusted science (and revered scientists) more in 50s and 60s US.

It wasn't because they were less religious then, obviously.

It was because they didn't have many chances, decade after decade, to get cynical.

But the lie was overcome by the efforts of countless dietary researchers employed at major institutions, so it was not at all a conspiracy of all the scientists. That is quite the contrary of what the people who have declared war on science are claiming.

>But the lie was overcome by the efforts of countless dietary researchers employed at major institutions, so it was not at all a conspiracy of all the scientists.

It's never "a conspiracy of all the scientists". It doesn't take one either. You just need to spread enough of your own brand of "scientific results" to be able to sell to the public. It doesn't even have to be the most prestigious research -- you can pay to have the press releases appear in all kinds of magazines as "fact".

That's what the food industry has been done for ages with tons of research on the benefits of this or that ingredient, or promoting this or that kind of diet (depending on the manufacturer). It helps that those doing it are not just some regular food company making $100 million per year (and which doesn't have much clout), but huge conglomerates like Coca Cola, Nestle and co, that control a large part of the processed food market.

>That is quite the contrary of what the people who have declared war on science are claiming.

When people revolt against something, it's important to distinguish some general sentiment and its context, from what some of them might be literally saying.

A large mass movement can never articulate itself well -- they move in platitudes, often opt for the easiest slogans, and often have more people attached who are not the most representative, just the most vocal (and extreme).

Rosa Parks, for example, might have gone as "I should be able to sit in front of the bus", but the gesture actually meant "I want to be treated as equal, period".

>It's the willful and deceitful spreading of lies and portraying of scientists as bogeyman rather than the bringers of bad news.

Well, science is a noble aspiration and a great methodology.

A scientist, on the other hand, and "scientific results" in actual practice can be anything, from great, to non-reproducible crap (most papers), to trite BS (lots of papers), to lies and distortions to sell some product, corporate interests, or ideology (a heck of a lot of them).

Just because someone is called a scientist doesn't mean they do science.

Increasingly they work more as "promotional" and/or "support" departments of corporate and government interests.

And the public might be too ignorant (lack of knowledge and terminology) to articulate this properly, but is not so stupid (lack of IQ and/or experience) to be able to tell something fishy is going on.

Not to mention that usually mere technology is conflated with science, and just because we can technically produce e.g. thalidomide, it's assumed to be good as well (because it's a "scientific result"), and it's proponents bad (luddites). Used thalidomide so it's a clear cut example -- one can find many others.

>The biggest abusers of tech tend to be those in power, closely followed by corporations, but the second is happy as long as they make bank, the first as long as they can use it to cement their position in power.

Agree. And their biggest enablers to abuse tech, and their biggest apologists, are scientists, or increasingly, technologists.

After all, they're their employees. It's not like in the 19th century in the UK for example, were scientists could be lords and independently wealthy, and could call a spade a spade. Or like up until the 70s, when it was easier to be a vocal critic and still find a job elsewhere. With the tight grip on tenured positions, and the decline of the scientific job as a status, they are more dependent than ever.

Heh, you suddenly made me realize that that old school publishing house may have a role after all: At least now there is some way to distinguish corporate crap from actual science.

Not that all of it is great but at least there is a bar to be crossed. There are some examples of outright fabrication in scientific publishing but the bulk of it seems to be in earnest.

>Perhaps this "war on science", however naive and inarticulate its proponents, is actually a war on the abuses of technology, such as the parent describes.

No, like in the case of global climate change, the war on science is to enable the abuses of technology, not eliminate it. And that is true for many other cases.

In other cases like evolution and the age of the universe, the motivation is religious, not the abuses of technology. I have read recently that this true for many of the flat-earthers.

I am rather puzzled that you seem to be unaware of the various motivations involved.

>I am rather puzzled that you seem to be unaware of the various motivations involved.

I'm rather puzzled that you seem to stop at surface level motivations.

This. Science is about sharing knowledge. Any such “dark age” is the opposite of that and thus antithetical to scientific progress.

How hard is it to destroy things? If people wanted to they could start breaking shit and then there would be no cameras watching them.

Can you manufacture devices faster than people can break them? I think some sort of mass uprising could still work.

Can you break a camera without being identified in a completely surveilled area?

This goes to a core why many believe a totalitarian surveillance system might not have a way back out. Once the first guy or girl breaks the first camera the cops will know immediately and they will end up in jail before they can say "revolt".

Former revolts and revolutions always needed the incremental creation of critical mass. Without the possibility of prior planing and coordination all that leaves you with is being a hopeless martyr who will be locked away in a heartbeat with the faint hope of at least motivating a few others to resist.