The idea that you can pay for privacy is a fantasy.
Just like in every surveillance state in the past, the people with the most privacy will be the people who are in charge of the surveillance. The people who will be the most monitored are the people who individuals in the surveillance apparatus want something from, or are offended and annoyed by. The civilian government reports to the surveillance apparatus in a surveillance state, not the other way around; and you probably won't even know the name of the person who really runs the country.
If you can see everything that people do, you can destroy them at will. If you can't find anything they've done, you can figure out something they could have done, and extortion easily provides eyewitnesses and covert agents in order to set people up. If necessary, you can extort necessary elements of the justice system to make the decisions you want, or just blatantly do what you want in total daylight, and make sure that nobody ever reports on it, no one is arrested, and witnesses are either securely threatened or disposed of in the same way.
It's depressing that we're arguing about whether public or private surveillance is worse, whether convenience or discounts are worth the exchange, or in this sadly gone awry "left" critique, whether there will be differences between the privacy of the rich and the poor.
Instead, maybe argue about why we've installed microphones every 10 feet that report to central servers in a way that cannot be audited. The technology is the enemy, it's just waiting for the right user.
Just like in every surveillance state in the past, the people with the most privacy will be the people who are in charge of the surveillance. The people who will be the most monitored are the people who individuals in the surveillance apparatus want something from, or are offended and annoyed by. The civilian government reports to the surveillance apparatus in a surveillance state, not the other way around; and you probably won't even know the name of the person who really runs the country.
If you can see everything that people do, you can destroy them at will. If you can't find anything they've done, you can figure out something they could have done, and extortion easily provides eyewitnesses and covert agents in order to set people up. If necessary, you can extort necessary elements of the justice system to make the decisions you want, or just blatantly do what you want in total daylight, and make sure that nobody ever reports on it, no one is arrested, and witnesses are either securely threatened or disposed of in the same way.
It's depressing that we're arguing about whether public or private surveillance is worse, whether convenience or discounts are worth the exchange, or in this sadly gone awry "left" critique, whether there will be differences between the privacy of the rich and the poor.
Instead, maybe argue about why we've installed microphones every 10 feet that report to central servers in a way that cannot be audited. The technology is the enemy, it's just waiting for the right user.