Do you like where technology is taking society?

[Hades]

Like many on this forum I was an early adopter of technology and embraced it when younger. But as I get older (almost 50 now) I am becoming increasingly concerned over the direction it is taking us. We really do have a risk of going down the path of SciFi's worst nightmares.

We are followed by CCTF everywhere. We now, almost without exception, have a phone in our pockets which tracks our every location. ANPR follows us in our cars and facial recognition is now a real technology. Our cars are being adorned with trackers and devices to give judgement on where we drive and how we drive.

We are ever moving towards a cashless society which will mean that if we fall foul of the state then they can simply cut off our ability to pay for anything, including food. this has already started to happen to several people with Paypal.

Our views and comments online are tracked and we are not only excluded from social media for not following the herd view but we are shunned by wider society if we don't agree with the herd view.

Drones are now being used to search for missing people. How long before they are just there 'on standby' to track people wandering into areas we aren't 'allowed to go'? How long before they start carrying weapons to 'protect us' from terrorists? How long before the definition of a terrorist is changed to one that includes people with unpopular views? Imagine being tracked from above by drones tracking you, with weapons, to monitor your actions and ensure you only do what you have been allowed to do.

How long before, as pointed out in the thread about workers being chipped, people voluntarily adopt chips for convenience, only to find later that they become essential, then mandated, and then another control over us?

Increasingly I see technology as a way to control us rather than enable us. I am a much less free person that I was when I was born in 1969. Back then with the landing on the moon technology was seen as a great hope for the future. But I'm not so sure anymore. I think we are at a crossroads where technology is, and can be, amazing. But because of human nature I think there is a high likelihood that we are heading for a dystopian future and one where technology could ultimately be the enslavement of people and possibly the femi paradox gate that finally stops our survival.

So... are we growing towards a Star Trek utopia or towards a 1984 dystopia? Sadly I feel 1984 is more likely.

 

[Squark]

I don't like the rampant narcasissm of 'social' media and how ubiquitous it has become.
It's so isolating and damaging for young people especially.
Likes do not equal worth or value.

 

[thezappa]

I agree with much of that.
What I would say though is I have no problem with the technology itself it is some people’s/organisations/companies use of that technology that scares me.

I read a post on HotUKDeals the other day where someone who owned an Alexa device requested a copy of all their data that Amazon held, it was frightening what they had and is a reflection of why I’m unwilling to commit to devices like that in my home. If it were simply a case of having something that made life easier without the fear of my data being harvested by some multinational I’d be more keen to adopt but I doubt that will ever happen.

 

[The_Abyss]

Generally the technology is great, it is the rampant monetisation of it and the manner in which it can be exploited and manipulated for the purposes of others.

 

[Hades]

Generally the technology is great, it is the rampant monetisation of it and the manner in which it can be exploited and manipulated for the purposes of others.

I don't think it's just monetisation. The state likes control over people because it keeps them in power. Technology that we are dependent on, and which they control, gives them control over people. The internet was once a free place. You could say or do almost anything on there while it was inhabited by a small and highly tech savvy people. But once the general population adopted it and came to rely on it, it has become another avenue for control. It's no longer a free place.

 

[jsmoke]

Well you've just described exactly what people like Alex Jones are preaching against, it's just that it happens very quietly and sophisticatedly in this country. It has been going on behind the scenes for decades. It's an evolutionary core surrounded by an ever more powerful police state. A simple equation, the more Godless people become the more authoritarian the state has to be otherwise we would descend into the likes of Syria or Somalia, ultimately.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Your perception of risk changes as you get older. So how much of the shift of perception is down to real increased risk in society vs. greater sensitivity to it, is hard to say. Maybe society was always so teetering on the edge of dystopia as today and we were just blissfully unaware of it. Or found it merely an entertaining setting for our Sci-Fi movies. The thing that didn't occur to me when younger was that maybe the increased fear of how things might go is actually the valid result of greater experience and knowledge.

I feel much the same as you. Some of the projects that are being done by the UK civil service today in terms of data gathering and behaviour prediction are very scary once you think about them. The issue is that so few people today have lived through totalitarian governments. At least in the West. We have a "couldn't happen here" mentality. Which is blatantly false. The thought of what this technology will be like in a truly authoritarian society, and how advanced modern psychology and social manipulation techniques have become too, is terrifying. I mean, there are plenty of examples now of the State manipulating society in horrendous ways to great effect. People just don't know or think about them like that because, well, that's the point.

Control is increasing at every level of society. From the way walls have little concrete ridges to stop people sitting on them to, to shadowbanning people on Twitter to how we think of things like the destruction of Libya. When the State can sufficiently control the people, it dispenses with placating those people and serves only vested interests. This has never not been true in history. Today there is carrot and stick. If the stick becomes big enough, the carrots will be abandoned.

 

[MikeTheNative]

It's the change of a new 'normal'. Your generation find it odd that everything you do is tracked, whether it be your internet browsing, CCTV, your card payments etc. But the younger generation have grown up with it, they see it as normal for your phone to track everything you do, as well as the apps they use. I'm not commentating on whether it's wrong or not, but as long as data is big business and it will continue to be, I expect tracking to increase but the general population not be too bothered. You might see a crossover point eventually where a line is crossed and people might get some privacy back after outrage but I can't see it for a while.

 

[MookJong]

Yes I think it is concerning that we have blindly changed how society operates based around these technologies. Our habits have changed quite a bit because of the smart phone and yet this is something that happened so subtly that we almost didn't notice.

I'm certainly troubled how powerful things like twitter have become in influencing the media and creating a culture of offence where people can be publicly shamed and have their life ruined for saying something that does not align to the platforms consensus. The future of all of this is likely a form of authoritarianism. Something akin to the Chinese model but with a higher influence of corporate rather than government power.

 

[LabR@t]

No, bring back the 90's.

No camera phones, for starters. If I want to get smashed, I don't want some oink filming it!!!
I swear this is why the youth today can't party hard.

 

[aardvark]

Well you've just described exactly what people like Alex Jones are preaching against, it's just that it happens very quietly and sophisticatedly in this country. It has been going on behind the scenes for decades. It's an evolutionary core surrounded by an ever more powerful police state. A simple equation, the more Godless people become the more authoritarian the state has to be otherwise we would descend into the likes of Syria or Somalia, ultimately.

yeah because religion isn't authoritarian.......

 

[dowie]

I don’t think we’ve become more authoritarian as technology has improved. If anything technology has been a very useful tool in taking down authoritarian regimes and helping to prevent them. It is significantly harder theses days to control news, communications etc...

 

[aardvark]

No, bring back the 90's.

No camera phones, for starters. If I want to get smashed, I don't want some oink filming it!!!
I swear this is why the youth today can't party hard.

you're not wrong - so irritating when i'm on a night out. No i don't care about showing i was out on facebook, leave me alone!

 

[Hades]

Well you've just described exactly what people like Alex Jones are preaching against

I know and I have to keep pinching myself because of it

Your perception of risk changes as you get older. So how much of the shift of perception is down to real increased risk in society vs. greater sensitivity to it, is hard to say. Maybe society was always so teetering on the edge of dystopia as today and we were just blissfully unaware of it. Or found it merely an entertaining setting for our Sci-Fi movies. The thing that didn't occur to me when younger was that maybe the increased fear of how things might go is actually the valid result of greater experience and knowledge.

I feel much the same as you. Some of the projects that are being done by the UK civil service today in terms of data gathering and behaviour prediction are very scary once you think about them. The issue is that so few people today have lived through totalitarian governments. At least in the West. We have a "couldn't happen here" mentality. Which is blatantly false. The thought of what this technology will be like in a truly authoritarian society, and how advanced modern psychology and social manipulation techniques have become too, is terrifying. I mean, there are plenty of examples now of the State manipulating society in horrendous ways to great effect. People just don't know or think about them like that because, well, that's the point.

Control is increasing at every level of society. From the way walls have little concrete ridges to stop people sitting on them to, to shadowbanning people on Twitter to how we think of things like the destruction of Libya. When the State can sufficiently control the people, it dispenses with placating those people and serves only vested interests. This has never not been true in history. Today there is carrot and stick. If the stick becomes big enough, the carrots will be abandoned.

What I think many don't realise is that the people running totalitarian governments, or dictators, don't see themselves as bad people doing bad things. They see themselves as good people doing the right thing for society. Only in hindsight are the warnings realised. There is a scene from a film I watched with my parents in my youth which always sticks in my mind. The film is called Cabaret and it's set in Germany during the rise to power of the Nazis. It's a tremendous film in its' own right but the spine chilling scene is a young brown shirt who starts singing "Tomorrow belongs to me" in a beer garden. Gradually the rest of the crowd get to their feet to join the brown shirt in song. By the end of it the whole beer garden is joined in unison. But in one corner, still seated and shaking his head, is an old man. He's lived his life and seen this before. he knows what's coming. He knows it's not good. But he knows that most others there are too young and inexperienced to realise it. They just all think they are doing the right thing.

It's the change of a new 'normal'. Your generation find it odd that everything you do is tracked, whether it be your internet browsing, CCTV, your card payments etc. But the younger generation have grown up with it, they see it as normal for your phone to track everything you do, as well as the apps they use. I'm not commentating on whether it's wrong or not, but as long as data is big business and it will continue to be, I expect tracking to increase but the general population not be too bothered. You might see a crossover point eventually where a line is crossed and people might get some privacy back after outrage but I can't see it for a while.

"Tomorrow belongs to me"

 

[StriderX]

The greatest single benefit from the internet is the instantaneous communication, that's it. Everything we do with it is ultimately on how we structure it. Authoritarians find it easier to be authoritarian, libertarians find it easier to do their thing. Narcissists get bigger audiences, vicarious idiots get symbols to follow irrespective of locale, depressed people get infinite densities of stress, loners can hide away literally their entire lives without stepping outside... and so on

The tech isn't the problem, its how it's used, and that has everything to do with entirely unconnected realms of social convention, contracts and what have you. Only Luddites and morons think otherwise.

A new style of education is required i feel, beyond the vocational/erudite and dealing with people's inability to be unique.

 

[dowie]

Authoritarians find it easier to be authoritarian

I’m not sure they do... see the Arab spring for example.

See the amount of effort China has to invest to try and keep a lid on it, attempt to control it. They’d have much less to worry about if they just had newspapers and TV/radio to censor/block at times.

 

[Mason-]

I don't like the rampant narcasissm of 'social' media and how ubiquitous it has become.
It's so isolating and damaging for young people especially.
Likes do not equal worth or value.

I think this aspect of it is bad.

Another aspect is that it unites people with extreme beliefs. Before if you held views that were out of the ordinary you'd be pretty isolated in your views, now you go online and all those people who are sparsely located are united in one area, and it makes them more powerful and more easily able to recruit people to their cause. The internet is really dangerous.

 

[StriderX]

I’m not sure they do... see the Arab spring for example.

See the amount of effort China has to invest to try and keep a lid on it, attempt to control it. They’d have much less to worry about if they just had newspapers and TV/radio to censor/block at times.

I mean sure, but if you have a need/desire to keep a bunch of largely distinct chinese regions under a single cultural motive/progression, you have no choice but to continue the widely expected path. Most Chinese would be shell-shocked if they just suddenly were like "welp democracy, love and cuddles from now on", they wouldn't believe it, it'd probably turn out like Russia did. The fact is that they're an incredibly vocational society and they know the value of study/research (ignoring the theft). They know that western democracy is practically a sham and my opinion is they probably helped with the likes of Russia to undermine the image of it (millions of Chinese students living abroad and what have you, coming home being unsatisfied).

The Social scoring system is by far the most scary thing i've ever seen and they know it works because we all do it, just not perhaps state sponsored. Who know's maybe the increasing educational standard/economic class will roll over such a system, but i don't really see it.

The Arab spring was a completely different scenario with centuries of strife, all interconnected with imperialism, resource control and religion. It helps when you have a group already there to spur into something larger if given enough incentive and interconnection between all the extreme potential/real terrorists to people that lost their jobs/don't earn enough money/lost family members to crime etc...

Until the class structure and hypocritical motivations of politicians are dealt with, there is simply no way it turns out in anything other than dystopic.

 

[200sols]

It seems to be turning us into a bunch of thin skinned wimps. I think it’s quite sad how everyone I see is just glued to their devices, Facebook twitter etc seem to have a negative effect on society. I’m 29 myself, so didn’t quite grow up with full always connected technology but I really don’t like where it’s going.

 

[SPG]

Tech is great.

Tech in the hands of facebook, amazon, apple google, twitter etc is worryingly bad.

All the hidden profiling that goes on in the name of service when it all about revenue generation. I have no trust in any large scale corporation these days. It should not be the norm.

The idea of a alexa, google home constantly listening is just bonkers.