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are we the lambs?
Dec. 17th, 2006 04:28 pmTime named "You" the Man of the Year. I experienced the inevitable eye roll here (cue ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lemondropgirl's icon, love that icon). But it plays right into something I was thinking the other day:
If I were a tyrant and wanted to enforce my state sanctioned thought and to the exclusion of all others, I would find the current growth in public data sharing an invaluable tool. "Wait," you say, "it's the other way round, free dispersal of information and all that." Let's face it, what I write in my blog isn't going to change federal policy, nationwide plot, or global economics. If you believe it is, please for your own sake don't answer any emails from Nigeria.
But as tyrant I love this information thing. I can very quickly and easily retrieve mass data on all kinds of people that would have taken years of investigation and data gathering previously. Oh, you rented that movie about gay cowboys from Netflix. You bought that book from Amazon that I'm planning on rounding up and burning. Look at how you answered the survey questions on that dating site, you'll never get a job now.
I take comfort in the fact that the powers that be are too busy chasing vast amounts of money to focus on that kind of tyrannical power. In most cases the stupidity of mankind is not a comfort, but in this case it's the only thread we hold on by.
lemondropgirl's icon, love that icon). But it plays right into something I was thinking the other day:If I were a tyrant and wanted to enforce my state sanctioned thought and to the exclusion of all others, I would find the current growth in public data sharing an invaluable tool. "Wait," you say, "it's the other way round, free dispersal of information and all that." Let's face it, what I write in my blog isn't going to change federal policy, nationwide plot, or global economics. If you believe it is, please for your own sake don't answer any emails from Nigeria.
But as tyrant I love this information thing. I can very quickly and easily retrieve mass data on all kinds of people that would have taken years of investigation and data gathering previously. Oh, you rented that movie about gay cowboys from Netflix. You bought that book from Amazon that I'm planning on rounding up and burning. Look at how you answered the survey questions on that dating site, you'll never get a job now.
I take comfort in the fact that the powers that be are too busy chasing vast amounts of money to focus on that kind of tyrannical power. In most cases the stupidity of mankind is not a comfort, but in this case it's the only thread we hold on by.
