The rise of the Security-Industrial Complex
(www.zerohedge.com)
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Cyberpunk is inevitable. We're gonna have corporate wars fought with security forces, while nations' forces will be reduced to ancient honor guard regiments, like Swiss halberdiers, just firearms instead. Corporate security will have all of the cutting edge stuff. Their board members and c-suite will be the new untouchable royalty.
Anyone gets out of line or rocks the boat, there will be video footage to blackmail them back in line. If it doesn't exist, it will be manufactured and authenticated by compromised auditors. Exile or banishment will be easy, they'll just be unpersoned from the system, and wont be able to use money. Midwits will abuse this power so much, entire unpersoned barter/labor towns will form and have to be regularly cleansed by security forces.
Shadowrun without the Earthdawn elements.
Apologies in advance for being a hopeless bitch.
This development of omnipresent surveillance will not be successfully pushed back. The desire for a central party to help catch criminals (depending on how they're defined) is pretty universal, and the state is the only group allowed (and with the means) to pursue justice anywhere these days.
The devices used each have wondrous private purposes, and it only makes sense to centralize a hub to compile the information, as it may save against costs and a level of miscommunication. The possibility of preventing some crime would additionally be a public benefit. Since nobody trusts each other individually now, people trust the state to at least try to look out for them.
Where things get messy is mainly in politically convenient definitions of criminal activity. Laws preventing you from buying gas guzzlers. You must report your dogecoin transactions. You can't go outside for more than an hour. You can't have more than 80 oz of beef in a year. No posting any
meanwords. No "vigilante justice" allowed. That's really the only angle I can see where people can push back successfully.Sure, technology will continue to develop. Authorities will continue trying to implement draconian policies. But the big mistake of our times is we exaggerate human ability. People turn those authorities into gods. People allow themselves to believe they these authorities are capable of becoming omnipotent and omniscient.
The reality is that such power only exists in these people's heads. It is hubris and a violation of the the first commandment. The reality is that is not actually true. Authorities are not that competent. They are incapable of being omnipotent. They are incapable of being omniscient. They can continue to harm people, sure, but they will never be as powerful as 'conspiracy theorists' paint them to be. After all, they are just people, and there is only one God.
Authorities don't need to be naturally omnipotent when they have technology to help do that for them.
After all, the whole point of technology is to help overcome your (species') own natural limitations ...
If they are not omnipotent, they can be overcome. So an unbeatable "security-industrial complex" is not a fait accompli.