The fear of an imminent surveillance state just rings so hollow to me. It used to appeal to me as an existential threat, but then real world experience made me realize how implausible this is, not due to technological limitations but political will.
We already have surveillance states. Walk into any chain drug store in the country and you'll be met with cameras tracking your every movement, deodorant under lock and key and a security guard at the door. You walk in and the overseers know who you are and track your every move.
However, people walk in to drug stores every day and walk out with stuff. They're often unmasked and repeat offenders. The drug store chain gladly hands over all identifying information to police as well as their patterns. Yet nothing happens.
People comment on forums exactly how and where scams take place. YouTubers bait car and package thieves within hours. Whenever a horrific crime occurs, 9 times out of 10 the perpetrator has had dozens of arrests.
> The “enemy within” continually expands until it encompasses the entire population of a nation regardless of their status and beliefs, justifying evermore paranoid and totalizing surveillance.
So the police doesn't go after known criminals who have been arrested for the umpteenth time, but I'm made to believe they're about to come after me any day now for my innocuous offense, they just need one more Palantir camera.
Be real, there's just no political will to enable a police state.
So now on to technology. Technology should make our lives better. Police should use it to capture and stop the 1% of the population that's making life much more difficult for the rest of us. And they should lock them up for a considerable amount of time, not as rehabilitation or punishment, just to make the lives of ~99% of us better off. Maybe not 3 strikes, but can we settle on 10? 20? Anything would help.
So these theoretical arguments about a surveillance state where some hypothetical political dissident is getting doxed and raided just strikes me as fantasy.