[ben_w]

Like all automation, having a database of your population greatly increases your efficiency, without regard to whether this power is used to do good or to do evil.

There are many still alive who remember the evils done by the Stasi, when I was a child, there were many who remembered the evils done by the Gestapo; when those are your core examples of a citizen database, such thing naturally seems "big brother".

The irony is the mirror image: America seems almost* totally willing to have private databases while disliking government ones, Europe seems almost* totally willing to have government databases while disliking private ones.

* to anyone about to reply "not I": don't be blind to the "almost", I know many here will be exceptions

[mharig]

> Like all automation, having a database of your population greatly increases your efficiency

Really? For what purposes exactly?

[ben_w]

All the things that surveys do but where surveys would be really slow, repetitive, and suffer sub-population sampling biases; and all the things that censuses do but with better temporal resolution.

[mharig]

Sorry, saw your answer just now.

And you think that those fine granularities are really needed?