> If you are under the panopticon, you are not you any longer. You respond to please others, not yourself. You are in fact a slave.
Under this line of reasoning, any level of societal participation is tantamount to slavery. I understand the what you're angling at and I agree to some extent; however, can you provide a viable alternative?
> Anything that enforces the hierarchical system, making it ever more restrictive, has blood on their hands in my view.
Society in and of itself is a hierarchy. Anything that contributes to society is therefore something that enforces the 'hierarchical system.'
You don't have to participate in society if you wish otherwise. The world could always use more mountaintop hermits.
> Under this line of reasoning, any level of societal participation is tantamount to slavery. I understand the what you're angling at and I agree to some extent; however, can you provide a viable alternative?
I understand why you ask this. I will respond in a way that I know will be unsatisfactory to you.
The way I see it, is all the actions that we are expected to take that are in service to self (i.e. getting yours). Society is geared up to make that seem perfectly natural. In fact, you/we all need to get acquainted with morality. The first step of that is to understand the world for oneself, to take no one's word for it but instead to apply the scientific method personally. Accept that you do not 'know' much, very little is proven. What you have are beliefs masquerading as knowledge - this is to say you have negative knowledge (aka crap).
What I'm really trying to get at, is that social change is an effect of the actions of all of us in aggregate. To make the world better, one can only attempt to makes oneself better. Be the change you want to see. And that is done by following one's heart/conscience/spirit or whatever you want to term it.
> Society in and of itself is a hierarchy. Anything that contributes to society is therefore something that enforces the 'hierarchical system.'
> You don't have to participate in society if you wish otherwise. The world could always use more mountaintop hermits.
Its not as easy as you might think to not participate in society! To get away from it completely is impossible. People I have never voted for, or agree with, demand, by force if necessary, that I contribute to and support their system.
Right now, you can see the next generation system that has been in design for us. Citizen scores, UBI (carrot), access (or not) to 'social' goods eg public transport, loans (stick), free movement, limited use of energy, water, etc without the 'administrators' say so. Smart water meters, electricity, 5g is the backbone to that.
Still, I don't discount the mountaintop - but I don't think there will be peace there either!
I have to downplay part of your threats, at the risk of sounding sheelplishly naive: but access to water and electricity is already under the control of "the administrators", and has pretty much forever. Even in the case it's delivered as a "public" service, the "administrators" were somehow expecting you to pay some sort of bills.
However, although I know some people get their water and electricity shut down, that's still regarded as extreme, and law tends to make it harder and harder over time.
The Internet itself (once a luxury, less than two decades ago) is slowly becoming considered as a "necessity" that should not be shut down. [1]
I understand your point that software is increasingly making dystopia technologically possible, and that geeks should beware how they use their skill - but I wonder how surprising and underrated law and social norms can be as counter-forces.
(Also, it made me smile to see UBI in the list of "evils" that are now "fashionable" to bash on HN. ;) )
Under this line of reasoning, any level of societal participation is tantamount to slavery. I understand the what you're angling at and I agree to some extent; however, can you provide a viable alternative?
> Anything that enforces the hierarchical system, making it ever more restrictive, has blood on their hands in my view.
Society in and of itself is a hierarchy. Anything that contributes to society is therefore something that enforces the 'hierarchical system.'
You don't have to participate in society if you wish otherwise. The world could always use more mountaintop hermits.