Perhaps in the future cars will not only record your face but also listen in for hate speech. Most cars have SOS and GPS modules so calling the police if someone in the car shouts a slur is just connecting some code together.
Why do you think this is only going to be in Europe? This will be the global norm modulo some astroid hitting earth or civilizational crash.
The trajectory is crystal clear: access to information (AI), control over personal finance (CBDC), privacy of personal communications (handful of big tech MITM in everything), metered social interactions (today China, tomorrow the world over).
I disagree with the simplistic model you are presenting, as if "patriots" would themselves deal with the matter of (global) governance in our age in a non coercive, "just" or "fair" manner, and not tyranny, whereas the historic record is that all such revolutionary attempts to removal of (perceived) tyranny prove themselves to be even greater tyrants.
Issue is systemic to the human species and our current state of development. Symbolically, we have achieved an excess of technical prowess while our mental and psychological (and here we can fold in spiritualism if you wish) remains underdeveloped. And there is also the (unpleasant but real) fact that various 'noble' human characteristics are not uniformly distributed among our species, regardless of gender, culture, or ethnicity. Humanity is very 'lumpy'. And the fact that some among us are lagging in certain aspects is unplatable but factual.
Many of these control systems being devised by the guvners are in fact addressing this reality. These things are not emerging from a dark pit where malignant humans are plotting against the rest of humanity. Contrary. Many are mind products of some of the best educated and well meaning who are trying to address the realities of our common coexistence on this planet.
In an ideal worlds, there would be no locks, no cops, no jails, no hunger, no oppession.
We do not live in that world.
Beyond our human condition (but certainly driven by it) is technology, which also has its own inherent developmental tendencies.
In my personal view, a mature and balanced approach here would be the insistence that the humans who are entrusted with the operation of these emerging systems of social control and management are the best of us.
Right now, given the pure profit incentive that selects a specific subtype of 'smart and capable' to leading positions, we are facing a hazard. (See Zuck as posterboy of the problem).
Fortunately the US has not only freedom of speech in the constitution but also tens of millions of armed civilians that place a hard limit on how much control the government can have over people's speech. The only reason the Chinese government can achieve such control over speech is because it can disappear anyone who speaks against it.
It doesn't even need guns; Nepalese youth managed to stop social media censorship there just by going to the political capital and threatening to beat the MPs to death.
America may have tens of millions of armed civilians, but I'm not convinced that so many of them care about freedom of speech, particularly when it comes to people who they disagree with.
Yeah there is proof of that. I wonder if most of those Americans that believe in freedom probably are the ones that voted in Trump and now look at where we are at.
Has the armed civilian population done anything to protect constitutional rights? Last time a section of them mobilized, it was to overthrow a rightfully elected government.
They were unarmed and the government was and continues to be scared shitless of that "attempted overthrow" (with no weapons? Does anyone really believe that had any chance of succeeding?) to this very day.
Seems to me like that Second Amendment thing could be very effective with a sufficiently motivated population.
I think this should go one step further. If you don't praise the magnificence of your local EU politicians then your car's breaks will stop working and an electric shot will be administered to everyone presently in the car. That will satisfy EU-rocrats.
The coming revolution will be well deserved I think.
Yeah man, like ... the EU just wants to control what you say, where you go, what you buy, while themselves are one of the most corrupt organization in the history of Europe, why don't people love them is beyond me.
I think you are confusing what a private citizen is. Focus on the word 'private'. Ursula should know NOTHING about me. I should know everything about Ursula, she lives on MY dime.
Then maybe they should stop doing things that invite this nonsense? We've already been down the road of the EU mandating ISPs save all your browsing history with the Data Retention Directive.
At this point the EU has to prove that they are not doing things like that rather than getting the benefit of the doubt.
It is cheaper for the government to just lock the car doors for the length of your sentence. Saves them space in prison. You are allowed to use the McDrive twice a day. The windows will drop 8 centimeters, enough for a Big Mac.
> Your kids are starving. Carl's Jr. believes no child should go hungry. You are an unfit mother. Your children will be placed in the custody of Carl's Jr.
Didn't Biden's big infrastructure bill already mandate that NHTSA develop regulations to require driver monitoring sensors starting next year? Or was that provision cut or reverted?
Right. The root of the problem is that the kids are unarmed and can't defend themselves. We need an organization that does for kids what is done for the pandas [0].
> The worst thing I have to hide is knowledge about my intentions, none of which are bad/illegal/immoral.
Correction: None of which are bad/illegal/immoral _right now_. The "I have nothing to hide" crowd will surely change their tune the moment any of their data starts to be used against them.
Those private enterprises just want your money. That's bad for a different reason, but the risk of being harassed or stalked by a private enterprise is very low unless you stand between them and their money.
The government can have completely arbitrary motivations and enact laws that punish people for the sake of punishment or just outright dismantle democracy by making it illegal to criticize politicians, something that is already happening in Germany.
That would have to happen, and by then it's too late. The best historical example is, not to Godwin the thread, but Dutch Jews who registered with the government and then when the Nazi's took over, that information was used against them. Political expression online is relatively safe under the current regime, but who knows if a future regime will also feel that way. If you posted something online about immigrants or criticizing a politician that became illegal to express, where would you be? Seems far-fetched, but in the history of the world, it isn't. People would rather not get persecuted for saying something they said 30 or more years ago because a lot can change in that kind of time. What once was acceptable becomes not in the different light of decades later. I'm sure if you go back to the very first comments I've made here, you'll find something embarrassing, though maybe not illegal. (An ernest plea that information wants to be free, probably.)
Communication wasn't digitally indexed and recorded forever, historically, and something intimate I whisper to a lover or very close friends doesn't ever need to see the light of day.
The guise that there's a predator out there, trying to cocerce 13 year old children to have sex with them is a good cover by the government to gain this control, because how do we refuse that? Won't somebody think of the children? So we have to acknowledge that yes, there are bad people out there, and no, I don't support Prince Andrew or the Epstein class, but at the same time, in the history of government and abuses of power, Chat control is going to be used against you and I, and not the Epstein class.