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Comment by skinkestek | Hacker News Reader

:-)

Soon we are back to:

Don't write when you can speak, don't speak when you can nod, don't nod when you can wink - or something to that effect.

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I recall a "meme" from USSR times that goes something like this:

Don't think.

If you think, don't speak.

If you speak, don't write.

If you write, don't sign.

If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised.

I remember Soviet block dissidents being assigned a 24/7 surveillance detail to monitor all their moves and contacts. I remember Soviet dissidents having their correspondence systematically violated by the surveillance apparatus. I remember US funded Radio Free Europe (and British BBC International) being utterly revolted by this state of affairs. Human Rights, Freedom, Democracy, Constitution, Rule of Law, Dignity. Exhibit A on why the Soviets were morally corrupt and had to go to the dustbin of history.

Fortunately for the Soviet subjects, in-person surveillance was expensive and didn't scale once the system started to crack and the number of dissidents increased from a handful to thousands.

Not so in the tech utopia. We have multiple megacorporations competing in doing every evil trick in the Soviet surveillance textbook, 24/7, at scale. Aaah, progress.

Note that the Soviets, living in a communist society, had the state watch them free of charge. I live in a capitalist society. We purchase our own surveillance here.

To quote Harlan Ellison: I have no mouth. And I must scream.

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