[harry8]

>What if you had to show Government ID whenever you entered a grocery store, a library, a movie theater? What if you were tracked each time you consumed a video, a still image, an audio clip, or even a text message?

  1) entered a grocery store - No, at least not since peak-pandemic. Face recognition?
  2) a library - Yes, to borrow books or on demand from security. Needed govt. id to get a library card.
  3) movie theatre - Yes, mine no longer takes cash.
  4)  tracked each time you consumed a video - Yes. Every single streaming service.
  5)  a still image - Everything on the web. Every book w/ photos I buy. Can hypothetically still look at books we own, was given, found, lent, pirated or stole in privacy.
  6) Audio - spotify, youtube etc.
  7) a text message - Your phone IS a device you pay for and maintain which is designed and regulated to spy on you. Signal is the only possibility for any privacy at all here.

>This is the sort of dystopia that librarians and others focused on liberty have been fighting for what seems like forever.

How is that fight going, do you think?

A Turnkey totalitarian state exists, who is going to turn that key?

[cf1241290841]

>A Turnkey totalitarian state exists, who is going to turn that key?

A totalitarian that will be recognized as such.

The plausible deniability of the status quo is worth quite a bit.

[hatenberg]

Oh I think a certain presidential candidate is running under the “let’s stop pretending” thing. So in half a year we’ll know.

[cf1241290841]

I dont see the "Look there a three headed monkey" type of tribalism distraction to be a future proof plan.

The attention economy overdid it. And corruption bloomed as a result. Which is typical for a totalitarian rise. Kleptocracies without checks and balances dont work and its quite visible to the outside.

Its just not a sensible path to go down on. Even looking past ethical and human perspective, totalitarianism is at its core dysfunctional.

[hatenberg]

The motivation of a late 70s old person is probably not being future proof