Orwell's Surprise - A Brave New World Of Self-Surveillance

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I grew up in the pre-internet era, in a time when conspiracy theories existed but didn't get propagated in the efficient manner in which they do nowadays.

One of the most popular conspiracy theory fears of my youth was of the George Orwell inspired Brave New World hegemony. A theory that said that dark shadowy men were working towards a world whereby we were all surveyed and tracked every minute of every day.

A world with a camera on every corner and RFID chips inserted into our bodies and our locations beamed to a central database . . .

Oh wait . . .

A Self Inflicted Bravery

I have been mulling this over for sometime now, but a comment made by @o1o1o1o on my post about Facial Recognition yesterday, made me realise that this Brave New World of ours has been entirely self-inflicted.

Back in the 1970s and 80s, and to some degree the 90s we didn't have personal communication devices. In fact one of my favourite things to do is to tell anyone under the age of about 17 how when I was their age, if I had to meet somebody, we arranged a time and a place and then we either made it or we didn't.

I love the looks of incredulity and incomprehension as they try and figure out how they would survive in such a world. Or even better tell them how for a while there were only three TV channels in the UK, and they weren't on 24 hours a day!

So without the concept of portable personal communication devices, and reality TV, the concept of always being watched was strange and uncomfortable to the average 80s person.

Yet today, not only do large sections of the planet have smartphones with location technology, we also have cameras which we use to document an ever growing portion of our lives.

Whereas CCTV used to freak us out, and the idea of 'chips in the brain' shook us to our moral cores; now we're like, meh whatevs . . .

Self Surveillance Society

As for misidentification the blockchain holds the answer. We should all run blockchain logging off our location which we can choose to release should the need arise.

@o1o1o1o

This is the sort of suggestion that would have really freaked a lot of people out not so long ago, now and in the coming future it is perhaps not such a bad idea, especially if things like facial recognition technology take hold in society.

Though should we consider the flipside of this kind of self monitoring? It is one thing choosing to release this kind of information about yourself, but what if it comes to being forced to; or is simply stolen without your knowledge?

What about parent-child relationships? Every decent parent wants the best for their offspring, they want them to be safe and sound at all times. However parenting is also about letting go and letting your children find their own way in the world, in this way society can progress and our children can become better than us.

But what if they grow up in a world where they are logging their locations in real-time twenty four hours a day?

Charlie Brooker the English comedian who co-wrote the dystopian science fiction series Black Mirror, explored this topic in the Series 4 episode; 'Arkangel'. Whereby a parent has an irremovable chip placed in her daughter's head which alerts her to the girl's discomfort and also whereabouts.

The episode shows the fractious relationship that ensues because of the mother's unwillingness to let her daughter live her life.

Unknown Unknowns

As is so often the case with new and emerging technology there will always be unforeseen consequences hidden around the corner. Sometimes those consequences will seem obvious with the benefit of hindsight, and at other times they will take us completely by surprise.

As we get to the point of ultimate monitoring and self-surveillance it only remains to be seen what the 'Black Mirror' has in store for us just around that unseen corner.

Fun Fact:

Charlie Brooker called the series Black Mirror because that is what you get when you look at your inactive phone or tablet.

WHAT DO YOU THINK; IS SELF-SURVEILLANCE A GOOD OR A BAD THING; ARE WE CREATING OUR OWN ORWELLIAN UNIVERSE WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE 'SHADOWY MEN'? OR IS THIS JUST A CASE OF BENIGN PROGRESS WHICH WE WILL LEARN TO DEAL WITH?

Black Mirror Series - Wiki

Title Image: Yahdi Romelo on Unsplash

AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

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Here in the UK, we have one fifth of all the CCTV cameras in the entire world watching us, the number one most spied on people on the planet.

We also are number ten country, in terms of smartphone penetration, with 69 percent of us carrying one, a device that allows the mobile phone companies to know our real time locations to an accuracy of within a few feet.

George Orwell would have puked himself, and yet, by and large, everything feels fine lol.

Most people like that the CCTV allows the police to catch criminals quickly, and most people love having a walking satnav ever on hand. We feel safer, and we don't get lost.

In the end, it all depends on whether we trust the Government. By and large, I do trust the current political system. As long as the Government is on our side, it's all good.

But if an authoritarian Government ever were to rise in the UK, we will be so easy to herd around like sheep, we won't know what hit us. :-0

Yeah, it's mad how that CCTV stat used to really bother people, and now we're like 'whatever'. Maybe we're sleeping our way towards a nightmare, or maybe it's all fine; only time will tell I guess.

Cg

You crack my rib man... Smile

This topic hits close to home here. I've been thinking about all of this for all my life. Call me paranoid but my stomch churns when I think about the development of facial recognition technologies. I always tend toward anonymity. Even when I trust people, I choose not to share anything about myself, partly in fear of indexation.

Every time you publish your face on the internet, it crawls its way toward a facial recognition database. Facebook already knows that I exist, and even though I have not published a picture of myself, other people have and they have tagged me against my wishes. Now Facebook can recognise me. If someone publishes a photo, Facebook can even tell me "hey, you're in this photo".

That is the scariest thing for me, and also voice recognition and even speech pattern recognition in writing. It's being developed, but it's not as wild as the other two.

I believe that our current society, as you say, has not only brought itself to this state but it will keep walking in that direction. People shun anonymity. It's hard to say "I won't show you my face or my voice, I won't tell you my name" without reactions such as "then you must have something to hide! What is it?" I just don't have anythign to show! But society tends toward self-surveillance, toward showing faces, places, actions and all.

We have this deep entrenched desire to share our lives and while it might be good for some, in general, it works toward the tendency. What I mean by this is that every time you share something, other people feel acceptance and need in this and they also share, and when everyone is sharing, you're the odd one if you decide not to share. Not sharing is not being part of society. Not taking part in self-surveillance puts you in a different, darker category, and that is sad.

Very good points, I explore a lot of these in my sci-fi series Asimov's Ghost, in that universe we all have things called empLinks, neural implants whereby we can feel each others feelings, though there are some dark repercussions because of it! :-)

Cg

Good post, and a worthy topic to mention. i think it's a necessary byproduct of our expanded society and over-populated time. It's a balance we have to strike, and I think on the whole it's being managed pretty well. But depend on who's in power. Such books by Orwell have helped to maintain and remind us of extremes. However, you could worry in more extreme areas of the planet, with strict governments, whether in the future that balance will swing.

Yes this is it, at the moment it is fine in my country at least (UK) because of our (mostly) benign government, but these tools are in place for future leaders to use and manipulate, let us hope they are just as easy-going as the ones today.

Cg

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I'm from Africa where we are still far behind when it comes to technology, but I think Self-Surveillance Would be good in tracking people wherever they are but, it would also tamper with our privacy just like it happened in black mirror... Lol

Their is nothing with pros without it cons.

I'll offend everyone by saying - if you have smart phone, in indicates your stupidity...
Paying for your own tracking device. durr.
Justify it however you will to yourself... that's also sign of stupidity..

ouch!

Lots of upvotes please!

Lolz, I think you should rephrase that to if you have a smartphone and leave the GPS on all the time ...

Even though I don't care about being tracked, I still don't leave my GPS on as it drains batteries and is unnecessary. I also don't download intrusive apps; however sometimes it's handy. I have been in foreign cities and found my way around because of the maps feature :-)

Cryptogee

Lolz, I think you should rephrase that to if you have a smartphone and leave the GPS on all the time ...

You are very correct..I apologize for not being clearer.

If people who have smart phones think that they are in control of the GPS -as to went it is turned on or not,- are stupid. ( like their camera's or mic)

The only control they have over them is an illusion. Their own delusion.

Thank you

Lolz, I'm happy in delusions. However when it comes to me pulling off a major international crime, or a Maoist dictator gets in at Number 10 Downing St. I'll be sure to downgrade to a brick burn phone :-)

Cg

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