The Coming Authoritarianism.

[Leo]

in New York City...where only the city's elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water and natural food, and even then at horrendously high prices.

that's kinda been true for the past 10 years!

 

[luka]

Surveillance and tracking systems currently used to control workers and prisoners under house arrest universalised.

David Blunkett – Suggested asylum seekers should be electronically tagged and tracked by satellite like criminals

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

one possibility is an automated/AI driven dystopia where a minimal universal basic income replaces jobs and allows a docile underclass to fight over getting one of a tiny number of jobs servicing the billionaire elite

for the record, I think this is by far the most likely future, compounded by, as you say, catastrophic climate change

or possibly a slightly more benign dystopia where climate change is somewhat mitigated by some Star Trek technological breakthrough (or algae, or something)

either way, I'm not betting against the billionaires

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

btw in re upthread, cashless stores are a pretty hot topic in the U.S. right now.

Philadelphia and San Francisco both banned them last year, and I'd imagine somewhere there are cases working their way through the court system.

it is extremely cyberpunk - Gibson's Sprawl universe is fully cashless, with cash only used for illegal transactions

 

[luka]

There's a huge number of cashless places in London. It's fast becoming the norm for cafes and some casual dining 'street food' style operations. It's not uncommon in pubs either.

 

[Leo]

it's come to the point where cashless transactions are so prevalent that I don't trust young store or cafe clerks to give the correct change on cash purchase. they sometimes even give you a strange look, as if "wait, you're going to make me count change?"

there are advantages to cashless: no worries about going to the bank or atm, carrying lots of cash, losing it, getting robbed. it's a shame cashless also comes with all the negatives of tracking and class issues. when I was young, I originally/naively thought it would be developed for the convenience factor but I'm sure the tracking and data were the primary drivers.

 

[luka]

Of course it's convinient although this too is given a nudge by bank closures, ATM closures, self checkout being almost all card only and giving you nonsense change on the ones which do let you use cash. And all that.

It's partly an attempt to design out crime and tax evasion (although cards have created their own categories of crime) and partly to do with tracking.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

The state of China in 2020, it's going to be more autarky than austerity soon. Turns out a globalism heavily dependent upon everything being made in China was a massive strategic mistake. Tactical rationing of food, medicines and goods is going to be a marvellous finger and thumb on the windpipe for any regime with an authoritarian bent.

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

Is there a hoarding element to some state surveillance ? A senseless greed with no utility. Governments know more about us now than they could ever use. But still this urge to know more.

I don't doubt a company like Google's ability to make use of every scrap of data it has on me. but I do doubt a governments. This isn't to say that government surveillance isn't nefarious disturbing and authoritarian. But rather just to wonder if there's something else going on than just an authoritarian impulse. A need to possess and own, even if you're never gonna look at it.

We are the massive "to read sometime" pile of books by the governments bedside table.

 

[sufi]

Yeah the way that Cressida Dick is slavering over illegal face recognition tech is like that - disgusting greed for authority

Is there a hoarding element to some state surveillance ? A senseless greed with no utility. Governments know more about us now than they could ever use. But still this urge to know more.

I don't doubt a company like Google's ability to make use of every scrap of data it has on me. but I do doubt a governments. This isn't to say that government surveillance isn't nefarious disturbing and authoritarian. But rather just to wonder if there's something else going on than just an authoritarian impulse. A need to possess and own, even if you're never gonna look at it.

We are the massive "to read sometime" pile of books by the governments bedside table.

 

[catalog]

Couple of sides to this I think.

1. It's not really a 'to read' pile in the sense we might imagine. More like a machine could just ingest it all like Kelly le Brock does in weird science. So it's like the effort involved by the machine is very little and all our analogies break down?

2. On the other hand, all the data is Ultimately kept in spread sheets still and there's actually loads of mistakes creeping in that are really hard to see. Which is why there's always that small chance it all goes wrong. The data is still far from perfect.

I keep thinking of dawkins' blind watchmaker in all this, that the machine will find the answer eventually, it will just take a bit of time

 

[luka]

This thread is due for an update.

 

[john eden]

Lots of stuff on twitter about cops merrily abusing their new powers.

 

[craner]

This thread is due for an update.

Isn't it just.

Local authority jeeps driving around empty Barry streets with loudspeakers ordering people to stay in their homes or risk being reported to the police.

The lifeguard tannoy on Barry Island ordering people to keep a distance or risk being reported to the police.

These are the things I notice on my one allotted exercise session per day.

I know there's a pandemic, but it's still chilling.

 

[john eden]

It is eerie but the big question for me is how much of this will be withdrawn when the pandemic ends. Because it won’t all be.

 

[craner]

I presume we'll be allowed out of our houses and the government will let us hug our mums again, but I guess I could be wrong.

 

[Mr. Tea]

It is eerie but the big question for me is how much of this will be withdrawn when the pandemic ends. Because it won’t all be.

Was about to say just this. There will probably be a certain amount of what, in a physical system, you'd call hysteresis.

The mismatch between official assurances that this will all be over in a matter of weeks and the two-year time limit on the powers introduced in the Coronavirus Bill is startling, too.

The legislation will be time-limited – for 2 years – and not all of these measures will come into force immediately. The bill allows the 4 UK governments to switch on these new powers when they are needed, and, crucially, to switch them off again once they are no longer necessary, based on the advice of Chief Medical Officers of the 4 nations.

Sounds like a lot of power has been invested in these CMOs?

 

[luka]

Lots of stuff on twitter about cops merrily abusing their new powers.

I saw some people on Twitter (it was dubstep artist plastician actually) calling for the closing of parks, and this was ages ago too. There was a video of some jobsworth community support officer telling people 'this is not a holiday'. But people sitting, widely spaced, in open green spaces is actually fine. In fact it's healthy and necessary for Londoners to have access to the parks, particularly as so many of us don't have gardens or even balconies and live in cramped and damp flats. So I was very troubled by that.

We need the sun, we need the fresh air. A forced march, huffing exhaust fumes along the A2 is not going to have the same effect.

 

[luka]

Lots of stuff on twitter about cops merrily abusing their new powers.

You get the sense that this approaches something of an ideal state for the police. Which is to say, the entire country turned into a prison, and not just a prison, but a prison on lockdown with all inmates confined to their cells.

 

[luka]

I'd be very interested to know how they are using this time and this opportunity. Who they are going after. What possibilities have them excited. I wonder what the drug market looks like at the moment.