Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Not the first, possibly not the worst

re: Not the first, possibly not the worst
Robert — (archived)

Is it worse than "working some 9 to 5 job where you're at a desk or assembly station with some supervisor watching you all the time"? Yeah. This isn't just the boss peeking over the cubicle wall from time to time, this is you sitting in front of a camera that's staring you in the face and randomly recording what you do. I'm surprised you didn't pick up on the imagery from 1984.

I can tell you've never worked in a cubicle farm. It's a demeaning environment that resembles nothing so much as a cattle pen, in which you have all the dignity of a farm animal. Home offices provide a refuge from that, but these guys are determined to invade even that last sanctuary. Managers and HR wranglers rationalize such things as monitoring email and snooping inside computers because the company owns those facilities, but this body shop insists on invading the computer you own to monitor what programs you use and snoop around your private data.

"The only thing they were looking for was somebody screwing with the mail."... the post office and gambling joints and banks all have legitimate reasons for surveillance, but that's not what people are talking about when we express horror at the prospect of a "surveillance society". It's ubiquitous surveillance that's the problem, or random surveillance, which is worse than the ubiquitous variety because it instills paranoia and self-censorship in anticipation of surveillance. As it's intended to--"surveillance society" is just a neologism synonymous with "police state".

And that's OK with you?

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (77 posts)