Glen -
As usual, I like the way you think, even if I might not agree with you!
I think that Mass Surveillance (caps or not) is crafted (among other
things) *to* silence many voices, but as you so aptly point out, it
depends on our ability to be intimidated (if not specifically to
"conform" as you suggest).
I have friends/colleagues in Ukraine who state boldly that "they"
collectively eliminated bribery by collectively refusing to give
bribes... that it took about a year of a mass uprising of people who
simply accepted that they could not get much if anything done in the
government bureaucracy for about a year while they starved out the
officials who were thriving on bribery.
On the original topic, I know of many very well educated, well informed
people (not unlike most of us on this list) who curb their speech in
very awkward and strange ways out of fear that they are being
"surveilled" and that one of their fairly benign yet counter-culture
opinions or ideas will be held against them.
I agree with the idea that our willingness to conform to the corruption
(of any kind) contributes to the problem quite directly. Too many
people respond to this idea as a form of "blame the victim" but I think
it is much more than that.
Carry on,
- Steve
On 03/29/2016 11:05 AM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Thought you guys would be interested in this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/03/28/mass-surveillance-silences-minority-opinions-according-to-study/
Is it right to say that mass surveillance _causes_ the silencing? It
seems to me that our tendency to conform is the cause. Then the
cause[s] of that tendency [is|are] probably occult, where some will
yap about things like group selection and others about ontogeny
(education, demographics, etc). I assume that various generations
vary in their tendency to conform. (We just watched Experimenter the
other night: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3726704/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 ,
which suggests it's robust across lots of conditions.) So, perhaps
the relationship between (recognition of) mass surveillance and
self-censorship is simply a symptom of a deeper cause.
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
