Totalitarian Technology is Engulfing Us, and Many People Like It
The rise of technology has brought great advancement for humanity in the last century. We've been able to advance in food production, medicine and propel the communications landscape, especially with the internet. But the benefits also have detrimental counterparts.
As we've made strides, we've increased the pollution of our environment, from the land to the see. From plastics to other chemical waste products, we harming ourselves and other species on the planet. Digital technological progress is also leading us down a dark road.
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The modern era has given rise to what's commonly called 'total tech', or totalitarian technology. Devices and algorithms are being used to drive down privacy and autonomy of the individual to benefit themselves or other parties. This is what the book 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power' talks about.
The major categories are sighted in the total tech landscape that learn about us in order to influence our behavior:
- consumer services
- the workplace
- government and politics
When looking at the retail sector, total tech is quite pervasive. BIg data is used to track and record our buying habits, with marketing and advertising used to entice us into purchases. With the advent of smartphones, the game has changed even more. Apps tap into our GPS data to find out where we are, giving retailers a window inot our lives and driving targeted ads to tailor where we are and what we do.
Personal data is being tracked, and people don't seem to care, they welcome the total tech . Homes are not filling up with personal corporate spies, like Amazon's Alexa and Google's Home. They record what you say, what you search for and what you, listen to.
Employers like to monitor workers as well, gathering data on them to analyze and increase performance and profits. Where once there were just times cards, now there are biometric time cards to scan fingerprints, hand shapes, retinas or the iris. Some people even celebrate being chipped in their bodies.
Mega corps like UPS and Amazon monitor their employees. UPS has sensors for when doors are opened and closed, when the engine is running, and when seat belts are clicked. Amazon is patenting a wristband to track employee hand movements to make sure they keep buys moving boxes. Amazon workers have apparently been calling 911 a lot recently for "suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts and other mental-health episodes".
This is the modern corporate slave empire being built around us. Billions in profits by treating humans like robots, which is why they want to replace people with automation as much as they can. The company Upwork even installs software to log keystrokes and take snapshots of monitors for their corporate clients.
Police and the TSA are now engaging in "predictive policing" where they are profiling individuals for potential criminal offense. Suspicious behavior or patterns are used to characterize people as potential threats on airlines. Who gets to decide what this behavior is? They do. Be late to a flight, change clothes in the bathroom, or act in other ways they don't like, and you could be the next threat.
China's social credit system has been a large success for the total tech face-stomping of humanity. By 2020, all citizens will be monitored, from speeding tickets to social media posts, resulting in a score that will allow certain access in society or disallowing it. Want to get a better job, buy a nice home or send your kid to a better school? Better get a high score.
The sad thing is that we're not only welcoming it, but demanding it. Technological adoption is shaped by our wants. Technology is being used to empower the group through centralized control. The individual is now the product.
Whereas older generations saw sacrificing privacy as a risk, the new Millennial generation sees it as safety-enhancing. They also seem to have more faith and trust in large institutions -- like governments or corporations -- to safeguard their data. I don't think many of them care about the data breaches with Facebook or the censorship among FANG. Autonomy mis no longer sacred, but a burden. Efficiency is more of a concern than the loss of privacy and autonomy.
References:
- The Rise Of Totalitarian Technology
- 911 Flooded With Calls About Suicidal Amazon Warehouse Employees
- China has started ranking citizens with a creepy 'social credit' system
- Data Security: Not a Big Concern for Millennials
- Americans and Cybersecurity
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I remember when I held a data phone in my hands for the first time.
I was extremely creeped out that there was a camera facing toward me.
Now, everything is normalized.
I still want a Linux phone that has physical circuit that can shut off the Wifi, camera, gps, and microphone.
Yeah, freaky world we live in now.
That would be a welcome improvement on smartphones to give us more control over the device.
The general apathetic attitude towards this tech take-over and constant monitoring is insane to me! Last year, I took a long-term sub job at a local high school in which students were told they could write their junior research papers on anything that interested them. I would say three quarters of the hundred papers I received were arguing for increased policing/prison/spying, safety/security. The few students who ran counter to the general population didn't write about not spying, but legalizing pot for teens and one girl who wrote about the dangers of Internet porn.
This generation has, through the machine and this tech, been almost entirely and effectively socialized to give up their anonymity, privacy and autonomy.
Also, my son who is in a plumber's apprenticeship program has a van with all of the location equipment so he is being monitored as the Amazon and UPS employees :(
Wow, thanks for the valuable insight into the next generation of brainwashing... that's disheartening :(
It's insane what is going on. Many apartments/housing rentals are moving towards hackable smart locks now, where they can lock you out from their office. This tech records the locking habits, which is useful not only to businesses who want your routines, but hackers/burglars who will know when you are not going to be home.
I often will leave my cell phone at home to avoid that aspect of tracking, although I wouldn't be surprised to learn down the road that there are tracking chips in our licenses and cards that are not only scannable as we know, but emit a signal to those issuing them.
Not one for visiting anyone, but for sure have no interest in being around those with the echo, and hoping to one day have enough funds to make my dwelling capable of canceling signals such as cell phones to avoid others who use apps like Fakebook that record everything visitors might have installed.
The farmers of men will not rest until they know everything.
Damn, thats freaky about your apartment! The farmers are on the prowl indeed.
Exactly. I was just writing a post about Discord. I just can't understand why everyone here seems to love it so much. It seems to be some of the most invasive software you could install. But of course the real threat is much bigger than that. Smartphones, GPS tracking installed in "smart cars," the "internet of things." How long until our electric toothbrushes report to our dentists?
I'm so grateful to work in such an old school shop. On my first day I asked if there was a time-clock I should use. My boss just said, "Why the fuck would I want a time clock?"
Toothbrushes will report to a system of data for insurance companies to perform assessments of us and our health for valuation :/
No time clock, sweet! Lucky you :)
So, George Orwells "1984" is happening nowadays. Like you said, most of this stupid Individuums are celebrating this shit like sheep and for the Government it's simple to find black sheep and sort them out. Hard times are coming and we have to stick together and should carefully arranged.
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Yup, things are beyond the point of 1984 in many ways, except it not as overt yet but time can change that :/
Privacy is becoming an illusion. I feel sorry for the next generation. Good thing there is encryption, but this will only help so much.
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Yup, the future will have it as some evil thing that endangers others :/
It would be amazing to take advantage of this awesome technology without having to be tracked, spied on, and used as lab rats as a cog in a biological machine.
Yup, but the freedom inspired aren't the ones making all the tech and software :/
the question is, do we old timers just surrender to the high tech inevitability, or push back and try to balance it?! damn thats a hard push!
We can make alternate choices, at the cost of restricting from being included in many parts of the modern connected world :/
I could not agree more that this plague of surveillance is way too far out of hand... but on that other hand, it is what gave rise in part to the cryptosphere that will turn the tide (eventually). People do stupid things and make catastrophic decisions out of fear and for security, we have been ween-i-fied.
Yes, the paranoia also leads to more cypto for security on the other side hehe, true.
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