You don't have to arrest people to break them. You don't even have to touch them, or be on the same continent.
That's the essential "evil" of total surveillance: knowing is already enough to effectively take most people's freedom away.
You don't even have to threaten or blackmail. As long as they know you know all about them, you can control 99% of the population.
Blunt instruments like internment and torture are just tools. The essence of repression is fear, and fear of information will do just as well as fear of internment or violence.
Put such power into the hands of mere mortals, and it really doesn't matter if those mortals represent corporations or nation states.
If the greatest warrior is the one that need never fight (due to a perceived predetermined outcome), then the most oppressive despotic regime is the one that need never oppress.
That's the essential "evil" of total surveillance: knowing is already enough to effectively take most people's freedom away.
You don't even have to threaten or blackmail. As long as they know you know all about them, you can control 99% of the population.
Blunt instruments like internment and torture are just tools. The essence of repression is fear, and fear of information will do just as well as fear of internment or violence.
Put such power into the hands of mere mortals, and it really doesn't matter if those mortals represent corporations or nation states.