Big data + authoritarian governance = techno-totalitarianism.
At least that’s the equation we’re most familiar with, and the route that appears to be being laid out in Xi’s China, according to this lengthily researched New York Times piece. (To be fair, the authors only use “techno-authoritarianism,” and the titular and subtitular “-totalitarianism” gloss appears to be the editors’ — which makes me wonder what the authors think of that terminological shift.) The video is worth viewing.
If I was currently teaching a course in media and/or science fiction, the question I would want to raise is whether and how big-data surveillance and analysis technologies might be used for more libertarian and decentralist ends. (We know they are useful for monitoring the state of the Earth, since without them we would hardly know the details of climate change.)
Here’s a group assignment question for that.
Part A: Envision a big-data surveillance system that would support a decentralized, libertarian-communitarian* society. How would it work? How would it prevent the concentration of power by any one group or class?
Part B: Is such a thing possible and feasible? Discuss, with reference to at least two historical cases and two literary or cinematic science-fictional scenarios. (No more than one of the four cases/scenarios should refer to Chile’s Project Cybersyn.)
5,000 words, including diagrams and illustrations
*Definitional note: Why “libertarian-communitarian”? The twin ideals of liberty (freedom, self-determination) and community (altruism, interdependence, multigenerational cohesion) are intended to be desirable enough to cover many of our political preferences, yet paradoxical enough in their combination to indicate why achieving them has been historically challenging. For some, “libertarian-communitarian” equates with “libertarian socialism,” or even “social democracy,” but for others, whose family members may have been hunted down by Stalinists, Maoists, or followers or Pol Pot, “socialism” may remain a red-flag word connected to the Communism espoused in those movements. At the very least, however, “communitarianism” implies a rejection of libertarian individualism as inadequate for building sustainable communities.
Your own preferred “balance point” between liberty and community may be closer to the right or the left, but the point of this exercise is to query whether this technology can work against the concentration of centralized power over individuals and communities. My assumption is that power corrupts and that while some coercive power may be necessary to address climate change, its technological instrumentalization is likely to have undesirable political effects.
