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[Proposal] Surveillance Pay-Off Scheme
Let’s say, hypothetically, that a total surveillance society was unavoidable - which it very well may be within a few years. But governments and corporations were trying to find ways to make such a thing palatable to the individual citizen-consumer. My question is simple: what would be the base dollar figure per year that they would have to pay you for total access to continual live video, audio, shopping, internet, etc records?
In other words, how much - exactly - is your privacy worth to you? $30,000 a year? $50 grand? Name your figure and please explain your thought processes regarding this.
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November 8th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
This is a great philosophical question, all modern events aside.
What it comes down to, like everything else, is economics…Specifically, what is VALUE of what you are giving up? This value is dictated by the market, or in this case the surveillance culture. There is a base principle value just on the fact that you are giving up privacy, but on top of that, there are a number of other things. Beyond basic privacy, secrecy is important, it has value, because it lets you get away with doing things you want to do. So the actual value is dictated by what the survelliance lets you get away with. For instance at one end, suppose it was Jerry Fallwell conducting the survelliance. He would then be able to catch you with any queer/unusual sexual activity, any weed you smoke, or any ideas that ran counter to the church. Living in this setting couldn’t have a price, because no matter how much money you had, you couldn’t have fun!
On the other hand, suppose you had an advanced and tolerant culture running the survelliance. What I would call an “open society” (meaning that there is enough acceptence so people don’t need to keep secrets within the culture) Then the value of the secrecy is decreased, because you know you can do whatever you want with consenting adults, smoke a fat joint, and express your political ideas even if they run counter to the prevelant political culture. Then its a manageable idea.
I love this talking about this philosophical concept because it reveals something about humans, about friends. You trust your family and friends because they ACCEPT you. This acceptence allows trust, truthful information and ultimately leads to the security.
The point is you have to ask if the entity doing the surveilliance accepts you, and will allow you to be yourself. If so, its just family. If not, your selling your soul.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
The other option is that you do self-surveillance and it is actually voluntary, and then you license edited versions of content to government and corporate clients for a regular usage fee, or some other arrangement. This, to me, seems like the most “fair” arrangement during the transition period into a more open society, as you say.
There’s also the long-range thinking: kids two generations from now may think that both privacy and the idea of a human as an “individual” whatsoever are completely absurd…
November 8th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
You could also have individual corporations (maybe even governments) who would outright sponsor the live surveillance feed for particular individuals who they find to be exemplary of their philosophy/brand.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Yeah, that free market type solution is really interesting to me too…But your post prompted another thought, which I want to spit out before I forget.
Liberty is defined to me as being able to do what my conscience asks of me, to be “myself” in some kind of spiritual sense of the word…It doesn’t protect the bad things we do that we know are bad, but it protects the person we feel we really have to BE. Any survelliance culture which takes away liberty is bad…But what’s interesting is the idea that there is nothing about having somebody know what you’re doing that inheritly takes away your right to do it…So its fascinating to me that liberty and a total survelliance society can actually co-exist, in principle.
Anyway, back to your idea: Yeah, I think that KIND of solution in the long term is best. Whatever arises ultimately has to be distributed and not too centralized, and operate off “invisible hand” principles like the market. To me the idea of Liberty and the commonwealth are really important, because I feel like people can really accomplish amazing things when the attitude (morale) is there. Letting people be themselves (liberty) and then having the system organize them based on what they choose to do for the optimal benefit of the commonwealth should be the prime goal of ay technocracy that would call itself “American” IMHO.
And yes, regarding the children, you’re right, and its coming. Let’s just pray it comes here first!!!
November 8th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Right! Just because someone is watching me doesn’t mean I can’t do something. Whether or not that influences my decision to act is ultimately my problem and not the problem of somebody surveilling me.
YouTube specifically and the internet in general seem to me to point towards this.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
How so with Youtube, out of curiosity?
November 8th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
YouTube acclimatizes people to taping themselves and watching one another’s surveillance footage…
November 8th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Oh, I see…Yes, good point I didn’t think of that. For some reason the book title “Manufacturing Consent” springs to mind. I haven’t read it, but I think its about propaganda being bad. But the thought just came to me that the difference between a romeo player and a rapist is that the player is able to manufacture consent in his partners…Which is to say that a player doesn’t infringe on the liberties of women because he sells himself. The rapist does infringe on their liberties. That’s what it comes down to with a surveillance culture. Consent. If its true that we really need it, somebody needs to sell it.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Yeah. Surveillance occurring because of “safety” from “terrorists” is boring. If I’m to be surveilled, I want to know that I will get rich and famous off it and that hot women will want to have sex with me. Reality television fits into this somehow as well, both as a precursor to YouTube, and as a crash-course in small community (quasi) self-government issues: see “Kid Nation” as an example of that, as well as Survivor. Except, in real life, we can’t just kick people off - although we can in perceptual realms mediated by technology: you could literally filter somebody out.
But anyway, you still didn’t answer the question: what’s the magic number $$$ to get you to agree to surveillance?
November 8th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Ah! You’ve done it again! You’ve got my head all spinning with ideas…that keep coming. Last post here I promise:
I just realized that player is the wrong word…I couldn’t come up with a word for “somebody everybody wants to hook up with”. But I didn’t want to imply that people should get “played” either. The best salesmen say that truth is the best technique, you find the people who actually need your product and give them the truthful information they need to hear about it to use it in solving their problems. This is incredibly important too.
But enough! I must study. Keep those ideas flowing!
November 8th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
As I said, it depends on whether or not it impinges on my liberty. I don’t have a problem with people knowing what I am doing if I am free, but otherwise you can’t sell liberty. Literally. It goes way back…it was decided a person can’t sell themselves into slavery for example, because you have to have liberty to reap the rewards of the payment. It just doesn’t work.
November 8th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
They’re copying the whole Internet.
I just hope they take the time to read this thread. Svenson you’re right on the money:
They can watch us do what we want all they want, but if we can’t do what we want they can’t watch us do it anyway!!!
My price:
a) Four times the average cost of living, adjusted for inflation (actual, not indexed), in my currency of choice, including, but not limited to, a currency or currencies of my own creation.
b) 20% of the gross profits derived by them from my datawake,
c) I reserve the right to also profit in any way from my datawake,
d) I pay no taxes of any kind, ever,
and e) I alone reserve the right to change these terms at my will and with no notice given.
(This is just a draft copy of my terms provided for entertainment purposes only. It is not in any way a legally binding offer or contract.)
btw I like the sponsorship idea. A direct incentive towards exemplary citizenship and outstanding displays of humanity would be a much more effective mechanism of control than fear of brute force, I reckon.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:16 am
‘Every man has his price’… (except Thomas More)
*
The greatest conceit of modern society is the belief that dollars are a good representation of anything. Price and cost have been completely divorced through the medium of externalisation; value doesn’t even come into the equation.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:23 am
The best action could be just to assume you’re already being surveilled…
November 9th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Well of course, but i believe Tim was asking for the price of our consent.
I chose my terms carefully. What would happen if a significant proportion of the population demanded this? How could the current system afford it? What changes in their behaviour (and ours) would it necessitate?
I agree that money has no value, except to those who value it.
Perception is the other half of the law.
November 9th, 2007 at 8:39 am
> the price of our consent
I’m not sure it’s ours to sell, or even that it can be sold. It’s all a bit internalised, like a part of the soul. Maybe I’d hire it out, but I’d want it back in good condition.
November 9th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
gotta include your pets also:
http://libertyark.net/nais_story.shtml
November 9th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
firstly, i`d like to say that if the government had a need to observe my activities all the time they would encarcerate me. that would be much more cost-effective to them than surviellance.
but to answer your question; $250,000 per year tax free, as long as my actions weren`t limited in any way.
then i would be able to indulge my creative will more effectively and they could watch until thier eyes dryed up and fell out.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
I agree, we’re not gonna get one red cent for it.
Also true. Do we own our footprints in the sand?
Yep. See condition e). It’s worth more than the other four put together.
Gotta say, even though this is hypothetical, it seems I’m the only one prepared to name a price. I reckon people are either like Svenson above:
…or they’ll just put it up on YouTube for nothing.
Either it ain’t for sale at all, or it’s free. Interesting.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
btw that NAIS stuff is nuts! First they came for the chickens…
It occurs to me that these psychopaths are actually quite retarded. How the hell did we let it come to this?
Oh: The machines use them (psychopathic retards) as portals, exploiting their weakness. In exchange for the machines’ creation they offer their utility as force multipliers. Totally Faustian. It’s gonna backfire on all of us.
The nature-loving witches shoulda burnt these machine-loving witches at the stake a long time ago. Too damn nice for they own good, perhaps.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Sorry alistair, didn’t see you there!
An actual price, good stuff.
I hope those are Canadian dollars!
November 9th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Damn, you guys must shit gold in your spare time or something! I would probably be content with like $50-75,000 per year, untaxable, as a payoff, though I like how much thought Carlos put into his response above. Given more time and consideration, I would probably want to move in his direction as well.
I’m currently living on under $12,000 a year though for a modified form of publicly-available surveillance (ie, blogging), so I know I don’t need much to live. I might also want - should they pay me a lot more than that, to take the extra money and put it into a corporation which would manage my surveillance data rights, or else into some kind of collective money fund to lobby the government or something…
I think we would also need to start drilling down to particular data usage rights. For example, Surveillance Agency X, would be the collector of my datafeed, but they would have no right to reproduce or to distribute that content (ie, it would not be available publicly, and it could not be re-used by corporations). Those rights would belong to me still, and I could sell or give them away freely as needed.
I really like this conversation. I think we should figure out ways to broaden it and include other people because surveillance is very much here to stay. I’m not really even that scared about it anymore, but maybe I’m just acclimating to the thought of it, and becoming more comfortable with myself as a public-entity.
November 9th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
That’s one of the most important things, carlos
I agree 100%! This post put me in a tizzy yesterday, I could barely focus on my other things because of it. I feel like there is something here, some conclusion we could reach that would be incredible, but I haven’t come to it yet.
We have always been a surveillance society in some way shape or form, and we have always been giving it away free in some way shape or form. You give it away free just by standing there, light comes off you into the eyes of others and this is your datawake. Whether the light from your shirt is red or blue is your creation, and this creation is the “you” that you give to the world free. Yet the sense of ownership is strong even in this, even in identifying ourselves as individuals we are asserting ownership of information. Thus to become truly open-source, we have to give away even our own identities, and allow other people to “be” us, so we can finally see ourselves in them, our pain in theirs, etc.
Its a very buddhist mindset, but some part of me would like to believe that I would give it away free if I could. But other people have the right to get paid and they should; everybody adds value!
November 9th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
hmm. i just named a price because of what i felt i could hypothetically receive, not because it relates to what i earn presently. (less than that……)
i don`t feel as if being watched would be a problem. i don`t mind being observed. in fact i like it and tend to be a bit of a show-off at times. i tend to do better at sports if i know there are a few people watching who might get a kick out of a stunt or two……and i really thrive on doing lectures in my field (i`m a bit of a frustrated stand-up comedian.) and i don`t have anything to hide either, so for “government” to watch would amuse me to no end actually.
we are all voyeurs by nature.
people-watching is a full time sport.
youtube is watching.
maybe the a.i. is being trained to emulate human behaviour this way.
November 9th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
It would be cheaper to give you a gov’t job. Then you would show up every day, be productive and reasonably happy while being surveiled and instead of paying guards they pay your supervisor. Two for one.
November 9th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
If surveillance becomes unavoidable I’m wondering what the cost is converse to your question. How much will it cost to pay for your privacy?
November 10th, 2007 at 9:52 am
> I would give it away free if I could
There’s a lot of truth in that.
November 10th, 2007 at 10:59 am
julia, that`s a positive way of looking at the situation, but i wouldn`t want to work for the government……….unless it was for my quoted price.
but then what would i do for them?
i solve problems for a living, if i started doing that deep within the bureaucracy, i would last about five minutes.
government isn`t about problem solving, it`s about making it`s self bigger. like any healthy organism.
no, they`d incarcerate me.
like my romanian friend tells me about her childhood, she and her family just tried to avoid all contact with government and thier agents (police/nosey niegbours.) whatsoever.
November 10th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
I like Romanians but they’re all a little crazy from living in Romania for so long. I think there are only three East European countries that have crazier people. My former coworker had the same experiences as your friend. They held religious meetings in their home and she made coffee and tried to figure out who was going to the secret police about the meeting. Immigrants from sane countries think Americans are crazy.
November 10th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
too true. the religious meetings in thier home. hiding from the police and wondering who was ratting them out to the cops.
i have met one romanian that i like.
she is still paranoid, but after four years realises that my feelings for her are honest.
she went back to her boyfriend anyway.
such is life.
i am an immigrant from england living in canada. i`m not sure that england is a sane country, but i`m certain that canadians are sleeping deeply.
my take on americans is that they are sane, insane, arrogant, humble, confused, certain, assertive, hesitant…….but mostly sleeping.
they wake up just long enough to watch csi at 9.00pm and then nod off again.
just like canadians.
there really isn`t much different between people from different countries thanks to cable tv.
November 10th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
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