Building Big Brother - or the Anthill Scenario

[Zandrav Ibistenn]

While death from a terrorist attack is an extremely unlikely way to die, western governments spend huge efforts into protecting its population from the "terrorist threat". Fear is a powerful motivation, and fear of not unravelling a terrorist plot before it's too late will lead to the introduction of more and more surveillance systems: cameras, biometric scanners, DNA libraries of the entire population, ability to tap into private communication or to block it, X-ray and thetaray scanners at major transit nodes etc.
With all this "security" people feel safe, but at the same time it reminds them of how incredible dangerous the world is, thus forming a symbiotic relationship, where people depend on the surveillance not to become anxious, but at the same time constantly paranoid because of the same surveillance.

If I was an evil dictator-wannabe this would be all I could ever had hoped for: When the political climate change I and usurpe power and abolish democracy, I will turn all the surveillance gear to its maximum settings and secure the populace in an iron grib. Insurgency will be impossible, because it will be detected before it has even begun.
With the people under absolute control society has reached a point of no return, where the police state it has created will be impossible to undo (unless a natural disaster of enormous proportion or a war with another country ravage the nation).

This is similar to an anthill. All the ants are slaves to the influence of the chemicals the queen secretes.
We are building the technological equivalent of an anthill.

Benjamin Franklin once said: "Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety".


Comments? Are we our own worst enemy?

[mistergreen77]

Since it would be spam to simply agree - I will add some more to the argument.

Governments are profiting from the climate of fear and therefore have an interest in maintaining it. The scene is set for a political leader to stir up public sentiment against a particular racial group and possibly set himself up as a dictator. The undecided may be swept away with the tide of public sentiment and unconsciously create the antithesis of democracy - a fascist state. Because we have furnished the tools by which a totalitarian government maintains itself, individuals will disappear as everyone becomes the perfect tool of the state.

[Zandrav Ibistenn]

There's another trend in a number of western democracies I find disturbing.
Not infrequently is the outcome of an election between two candidates something like 49,7% against 49,4% (the rest for some unimportant outsider). Flipping a coin would give just about the same results, and I'd hate to believe that's what people do to make up their mind. Why does this happen? Because of a common strategy employed by the politicians: to repeat what good about themselves and what is bad about their opponents, while not answering any questions directly. This is obfuscation of the presentation of their respective policital agendas to their electorates.
In pseudo-democracies the dictator usually gets something like 99,9% of the votes, and everyone can see how this is obviously bad. - But when two candidates get 49%...

There ought to be a set of principles for proper democratic election campaigns in the UN charter, lest we inevitably suffer this vulgarization of the democratic process.
- If the results are almost equal, then there's something very, very wrong.

Governments are profiting from the climate of fear and therefore have an interest in maintaining it.

I absolutely agree; fear is a powerful motivator. Perpetual fear even more so.