Panopticon Evolved

Do you know that feeling of being watched? Some people claim to have evolved eyes in the back of their heads, or that they can feel the gaze of someone staring at them in the back of their necks; I can only believe that these people in particular must be going mad, now that we're all being watched constantly...

"The architecture of surveillance". That was said about Jeremy Bentham's design of the Panopticon Prison. It was a prison design with all the cells built in a circular enclosure, with a watch-tower smack in the middle from which prison guards could at all times see all the prisoners. You see, if prisoners are watched 24/7, they behave. That was a brilliant design in itself, but it got even better; in modern panopticon prisons, the guard-chamber on top of the central watch-tower was fitted with one-way glass. The guards could look out, but the prisoners could not look in; the prisoners therefore could never be sure if they were actively being watched at any given moment... But they still behave. Only the possibility of being watched by a man with a gun, was enough to change their behavior...

The prisoner inside the panopticon is free in just this way, able to choose between becoming a responsible worker and citizen or not. [...] As a result, they, like the "subjects" of the panopticon, assumed responsibility for self-discipline due to the highly visible, although very often unverifiable, political monitoring.
_{source: Cambridge Dictionary}

What else is the state than the man with the gun? The state has a monopoly on the use of violence after all. Well, the state now sits in that guard-tower with one-way glass. Modern surveillance techniques have transformed modern society into one big panopticon prison, they control the Eye of Mordor, and they see all. The alliance between big tech companies and states worldwide has taken on properties hitherto only known in dystopian science fiction; Big Brother is watching you, quite literally now. Cities are full of camera's with facial recognition software behind them, but not only that, we carry with us our own camera on our mobile phones, and these are increasingly unlocked with facial recognition. And we all know that these big tech company have no qualms sharing all that data with states and other companies.

The latest boost for the omnipresent watch-tower of the state was given as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic; millions, maybe billions of people world wide have installed tracking software on their mobiles, per friendly request by their governments. Only to safeguard their health of course... This whole tracking-ordeal made me think about an episode from the very mediocre series "DC Legends Of Tomorrow"; in it, an escaped evil soul from Hell was trying to gain the top-seat by gathering the most human souls. In his ploy to dethrone Satan, he devised an app, to which customers had to give their consent; you know, the "terms of service" almost no one ever reads. The clever part was this: in the small letters was a clause that said that by agreeing to install the software, the customer pledged their soul to the rebellious Satan-wannabee...

I've included two videos today, bot on this subject; please watch them both. Bio-metric passports, as well as most of the other measures taken in these dark times are not in our interest. To do anything about this, people first have to be aware that this is happening, not for our safety, but for the benefit of the real rulers behind the state; the billionaires who own more money than they could spend in a thousand lifetimes. I hope that after watching this, you never again eat dinner without feeling like someone is watching over your shoulder...

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