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surveillance argument

> On Wed, 2 Sep 1998, Peter Giblin (THOMASMILLER) wrote:
> >      According to PCWeek (UK), Professor Warwick of Reading University
> >      Cybernetics department became the world's first cyborg.
> <snip>
> 
> Back to the ol' survelliance argument...
> 
> This kind of scares me...  Think of what it would be like if in 20 years
> or so, everyone had something like this (for Big Brother's benefit, of
> course).
> 
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i was recently asked to write a short essay on surveillance of this sort,
what we used to call "dog collars".

if folks have any thoughts or ideas (constructive crit., etc.) on this
essay, it would be much appreciated (e.g. i still have time to change
before publication date).

> lynx -dump http://wearcam.org/accident.html

               REFLECTIONIST ISSUES IN HUMANISTIC INTELLIGENCE:

           ACCIDENT AS MEANS OF SEEING THE WALLS OF HEGEMONY'S CELL

http://wearcam.org/accident.htm

   Steve Mann, September 1, 1998
     _________________________________________________________________

   The forces of hegemony often manifest themselves as control systems to
   maintain social order, much like the obedience collars worn by dogs.

   Obedience collars are said, by their manufacturers, to produce an
   "electrical corrective signal" when the dog deviates from its
   confinement space.

   In addition to being a pleasant euphemism for "painful electric
   shock", the notion of a "corrective signal" describes quite well the
   dehumanizing "control systems" approach [1] to maintaining social
   order.

   The "control theory" approach to maintaining social order [1] might,
   at first, appear to maximize happiness for all, but at some point one
   must ask whether Disnification leads to Prisonification [2], or if
   Singapore leads to Sing Sing.

   Is the idyllic world a prison? Perhaps the prison grows around us so
   slowly that we don't see it, until an accident happens and we hit the
   walls of our cell, like Jim Carrey of the Truman Show who sails to the
   edge of the earth and crashes into its wall, suddenly discovering his
   confinement vessel --- the television studio as a prison with an
   illusion of freedom --- a prison one cannot see until an accident
   happens.

   The accident is something the makers of the confinement vessel never
   envisioned. The accident reveals truths that are otherwise shrouded in
   lies manufactured by the control/containment system.

   When Reflectionism [3] is successful we smash painfully into the
   mirror it has held up to us (society). At first it appears as an idiot
   or drunk, driving on the wrong side of the road, until we realize it
   is a mirror image of ourselves. Collision with the mirror, it is
   hoped, will reveal thuths otherwise hidden from us. It is not the
   detached grotesque cyborg entity in its tangled mess of circuits and
   wiring, but, rather, it is the idyllic society we have built that says
   "Please Wait, while I steal your time, your life, and your soul" [4].

References

    1. Steve Mann; "Empowerment"; Keynote Address; International
       Conference on Wearable Computing, 1997,
       http://wearcomp.org/icwc/keynote.htm
    2. Clifford D. Shearing and Philip C. Stenning; "From the Panopticon
       to Disney World: The Development of Discipline"; in Perspectives
       in Criminal Law: Essays in Honour of John LL.J. Edwards; pp335-349
    3. Steve Mann; "Reflectionism and diffusionism",
       http://wearcam.org/reflect.htm; Leonardo, 31(2), pp93-102, 1998
    4. "Please Wait: A parody of the time thieves." Excerpt from Prof.
       Mann's Keynote Address; Virtual Reality Conference; Rio de
       Janiero; June 1-6, 1998; http://wearcam.org/pleasewait.htm

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