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The problem is replicators and transporters.

A replicator could fabricate evidence with your fingerprints/DNA and a transporter could plant the evidence anywhere.

In theory a dead body complete with fatal wounds and matching murder weapon could be fabricated and teleported into a place only you can access.

One way to disprove the evidence is with the transporter/replicator logs, assuming they cannot be hacked. This, unfortunately, validates the surveillance state insofar as pervasive logging/accounting can be termed surveillance.

We only get to see the lives of the ship based explorers/soldiers, so maybe things are different in the civilian world.
The problem is replicators and transporters. A replicator could fabricate evidence with your fingerprints/DNA and a transporter could plant the evidence _anywhere_. In theory a dead body complete with fatal wounds and matching murder weapon could be fabricated and teleported into a place only you can access. One way to disprove the evidence is with the transporter/replicator logs, assuming they cannot be hacked. This, unfortunately, validates the surveillance state insofar as pervasive logging/accounting can be termed surveillance. We only get to see the lives of the ship based explorers/soldiers, so maybe things are different in the civilian world.

4 comments

[–] phoxy [OP] 2 points (+2|-0)

Is it possible to have a surveillance state without someone using the surveilled information as leverage or to their advantage?

Information is power, after all. If all tracking and logging is a matter of public record that may eliminate the power of the information, but at the cost of privacy of any form. There can be no social taboos, because anyone can trivially discover those who violate the taboo. Society will be either free of taboos and social pressures, or utterly totalitarian about conforming to the norm.

Can society progress if everything is public?

Is a society without social pressures even possible?
[–] InnocentBystander 2 points (+2|-0)

Is it possible to have a surveillance state without someone using the surveilled information as leverage or to their advantage?

Probably not.
But with it in the hands of public trust (democracy or whatever), and with proper oversight, it can be used to the advantage of society.

We're a long long way from anything like that becoming possible. But if we don't figure it out, we will not need to worry about surveillance. There will be none of us left to watch the tapes anyway.

I think the rest of your points rely on the abuse of power as an absolute.
If I do not believe abuse is both inevitable, and unavoidable, then they do not hold up.

A method of finding consensus, and oversight of execution by public trust, is in my opinion a possibility, and necessity.
All other roads, when combined with Apocalyptic power in the hands of individuals, will lead to the demise of the human race.

Again, that is what my bong would have us believe. So take it for what it's worth.
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