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Sci-Fi Stories That Predicted the Surveillance State
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Just to address one thing straight away: one of your favorite science fiction stories dealing, whether directly or indirectly, with surveillance is bound to be left off this list. And 1984's a given, so it's not here. At any rate, the following books deal in their own unique way with surveillance. Some address the surveillance head-on, while others speculate on inter-personal intelligence gathering, or consider the subject in more oblique ways. Still others distill surveillance down to its essence: as just one face of a much larger, all-encompassing system of control, that proceeds from the top of the pyramid down to its base."
All technology is used by those who are in power, or want power.
That surveillance is one of those powers isn't particularly new. People had networks of spies in ancient times.
The real question is the people in power. They will have this power, and they will use it; toward what end? And, what is their level of moral rectitude?
I don't think we can use rules, laws and regulations to keep them in line. They need to be good people.
Futurist Traditionalism
The book you want is Huxley's Brave New World. Instead of overlords controlling people through power and domination, people allow themselves to be controlled in exchange for the pleasantries of modern life - sex, entertainment, and other trivialities. As long as they get as much of those as they want, they don't give a damn what else is going on in society or who is controlling it. As the saying goes, you attract more flies with honey...
I always thought Star Trek had a little bit of surveillance society in it, because the computer was always listening for you to say "Computer" and give it a command. Mind you, the Enterprise *was* as close to a military ship as the ST society had in the original series, so I guess it might be understandable.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Terry Gilliam's interpretation of Orwell's 1984: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
Ben Elton is perhaps better known in Commonwealth countries as a TV comedian, but he writes a fine line of satire which frequently swerves into the SciFi realm and is almost always a form of social commentary.
Blind Faith is an interesting posit on where the current obsession with social media, coupled with government surveillance and the slide away from science to religion could do to a slightly futuristic society.
Well worth a read, and if you enjoy that, you may enjoy some of his older works, such as Stark, This Other Eden, or some of his more recent stuff (there's dozens).
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
What makes the fictional dystopias featuring surveillance states interesting isn't simply the fact that they conduct surveillance, but rather what they do with the information. In the fictional dystopias is it to engage in various sorts of general repression against the population, sometimes subtly, sometimes in a heavy handed and cruel fashion. How many of them involve actions by the state to genuinely protect the citizenry except in an Orwellian fashion? Moving from fiction to history and current events reveals that the difference between free societies using surveillance to protect themselves is in marked contrast to unfree societies. Nobody went to prison for 10 years at hard labor for simply calling George Bush, "Chimpy McHitler," while he was President, but plenty of people went to the Gulag for 10 years for telling a joke about Stalin, and far from all of the people sent to the Gulag survived. There may need to be refinement and more oversight over the activities of the intelligence services of Western governments, but getting it wrong will ultimately lead to harsh feedback of another sort.
Too true:(Listen for the joke at 1:40) Reagan tells Soviet jokes
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The book you want is Huxley's Brave New World. Instead of overlords controlling people through power and domination, people allow themselves to be controlled in exchange for the pleasantries of modern life - sex, entertainment, and other trivialities. As long as they get as much of those as they want, they don't give a damn what else is going on in society or who is controlling it. As the saying goes, you attract more flies with honey...
Another good take is the role-playing game Paranoia - which made the surveillance state amusing (and insane) [1]. In addition to big brother, brave new world-ish mandatory uppers and downers combined with a Kafka-like maze of rules that can never all be respected - you are forced to betray, backstab, lie and cheat faster/better than the other players.
This, along with games like Diplomacy [2], should be mandatory for all 10y+ kids so they can become accustomed to shit that others will pull on them with more real-world painful consequences.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)
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I'm disappointed that Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" is not at the top of this list. Written in 1961, it's entire premise is about a thief that operates in a society with computer surveillance tracking everyones every move. Facial recognition, camera and car tracking, etc, etc. I've re-read this many times and it's almost frightening how close it is to reality. Even to the point of most of the populace being comfortable with the intrusion.
What's up with this box everyone has to think inside of or outside of? Why does there have to be a box?
all-encompassing system of control, that proceeds from the top of the pyramid down to its base
I feel this statement unduly absolves us as a society from blame for our own surveillance state -- as if we hadn't clamored for safety, as if we hadn't spouted off about having nothing to hide, as if we hadn't secretly distrusted anyone using encryption, anonymous account, or trying to live "off the grid", as if we hadn't openly derided the boys who cried wolf about the coming panopticon. Do you think something of this magnitude is simply ordered from "the top"? We asked for this. The only thing you can complain about is that the people we elected (and those they appointed or hired) to do our bidding, in an effort to more completely obey us, didn't tell us what they were doing. It's like hiring a hitman and having him tell you it's better that you not know the details of the hit you've paid for.
I don't think this is a pyramid. This is an hourglass, or a pinched torus -- we all sit on top of the government, down to a single point of control; which then sits on top of an expanding mass of surveillance state that sits in/on/around all of us. Unless of course you buy into the idea that our elections are rigged, that it's all been run by a cabal for decades/centuries/millenia, etc.
But I think it's much simpler to accept that we did this to ourselves. It doesn't take a roomful of geniuses working secretly, it just takes a nation of average Joe's being themselves. Design by committee, of millions.
...is another classic that belongs on the list.
My truck is like a series of tubes.
From a more economics-based standpoint(specifically, what happens when there are no real "jobs" left), I would have to say "Player Piano" by Kurt Vonnegut. Now of course there is the obviously dated references to computers with so many vacuum tubes that they fill a cave, and alas engineers ARENT the richest people on the planet but there is some great social commentary in there re: what to do when technology and society has rendered most people useless.
In the book, 99% of young men are basically given 2 options: join the army or join a meaningless public works organization....this is eerily similar to today's economy. Having spent time on a military base as a contractor, I can say that most of these guys would have been working at a factory if they had been born 50 years ago, but as most of those jobs have dried up they ended up in the Army. I know people in the US like to go all hero worship on these people, but lets face facts: For most of them, it's their only ticket to anything that even closely resembles a middle class lifestyle. They either aren't cut out for post-secondary education or cannot afford it, and since we don't have any other place for them(much like in the story), we stick them in the army...... The "reeks and wrecks" are the public works people, not quite as big in the US as they are elsewhere(for instance, Japan), but they are still there.
If you have time, definitely check it out, I've just scratched the surface of how correct Vonnegut was in predicting what happens when people stop being "useful" to society.
Monstar L
The Slow Glass stories, by Bob Shaw.
Given that Orwell got so very much right about the future, why exclude 1984 from the list? Just to make an interesting discussion that would have been largely already well-hashed-out otherwise?
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I was much more surprised to read, in an out-of-print '80s novel written by a lesser-known SF author, about drone operators remotely carrying out surgical strikes halfway across the planet, all while being denied any credit or commendation because the traditional military community doesn't consider them "pilots."
Russia's at the same state now, if you criticize Putin you end up in jail on a trumped up charge or commit suicide or end up dead abroad. Words are enough.
Barrett Brown (who made the mistake of reporting 'anonymous' leaks and upsetting a defense contractor). His charge is grade A fabricated crap.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/21/barrett-brown-persecution-anonymous
(Wikileaks and Glenn were targetted for smear campaigns.)
Wanna see a video of undercover cops trying to plant drugs on 'protestors', there's lots and lots of those, DuckDuck for them. Seems to be an easy bust.
Do people get killed for speech by America? Sure, usually by drone strike, then Fox calls them 'vile propagandists', without seeing the irony.
Aaron of course was on trumped up charges and killed himself. Guantanamo is force feeding prisoners who just want a trial. Those are genuine suicides/attempts, Putin's tend to be thrown off a building, but nobody is really sure how many.
It's comforting to believe you have surveillance without the negative effect, but you really don't. Soviet Russia was mostly just people going about their business of beer and circus.
[...] you sheeple [...]
[...] I suggest you Google [...]
"Oops?"
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Except that they aren't POWs. That would require that they be treated as per the Geneva convention (which they are not). They have none of the rights of civilian criminals (i.e. habeas corpus) AND none of the rights of military POWs.
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