Total Surveillance Society

Description

Pervasive monitoring technology eliminates privacy, testing whether security gains justify the erosion of civil liberties and personal autonomy.

Real-World Relevance

Maps to debates on facial recognition, digital surveillance, social credit systems, and the privacy-security tradeoff.

Classification

Domains: Surveillance and PrivacyGovernance and Political SystemsMedicine and Human EnhancementEthics and Philosophy of TechnologyWarfare and Weapons TechnologyCommunication and Information TechnologyTime Travel and Temporal Mechanics

Scenario Types: Warning / Self-preventing prophecyCautionary taleThought experiment / What-ifEthical dilemmaPrediction / Extrapolation

Outcomes: DystopianCautionaryAmbiguous / MixedTransformative

Tags: surveillanceprivacyauthoritarianismdream-surveillanceneuro-privacythought-theftcognitive-rightsidentity-verification-after-reconstructionidentity-verificationprostheticscold-war-paranoiapsychic-interrogationcognitive-privacymind-readingneurorightsremote-embodiment-surveillanceremote-embodimentiot-surveillanceintimacy-devicevoluntary-surveillancetotal-privacy-destructiontotal-transparencyprivacy-deathwormhole-surveillancevelvet-glove-imprisonmentcaptivityidentity-erasuremind-control-device-time-travelermind-controltemporal-interventiontechnology-prevention

Stories (34)

• A Scanner Darkly — Philip K. Dick (1977)
• Animal Farm / Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell (1978)
• Attack Surface — Cory Doctorow (2020)
• Blue remembered Earth — Alastair Reynolds (2012)
• Broken Sky — Chris Wooding (1999)
• Code — Lawrence Lessig (1999)
• Cress — Marissa Meyer (2014)
• Dream thief — Stephen R. Lawhead, Jonathan Roberts, Ross Lawhead (1983)
• Earth — David Brin (1990)
• Flow my tears, the policeman said — Philip K. Dick (1974)
• Glasshouse — Charles Stross (2006)
• Helliconia Summer — Brian W. Aldiss (1983)
• Homeland — Cory Doctorow (2013)
• Hominids — Robert J. Sawyer (2003)
• Kentukis — Samanta Schweblin (2014)
• Little Brother — Cory Doctorow (2008)
• Midnight Robber — Nalo Hopkinson (2000)
• Minority Report — Philip K. Dick, Hélène Collon (1998)
• Mutant — Henry Kuttner (1953)
• Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell (1949)
• Oath of fealty — Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle (1981)
• QualityLand — Marc-Uwe Kling (2017)
• Radio Free Albemuth — Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick (1985)
• Tales of Known Space — Larry Niven (1975)
• The Anome — Jack Vance, Russell Letson (1973)
• The Artificial Kid — Bruce Sterling (1980)
• The City & The City — China Miéville (2009)
• The Demolished Man — Alfred Bester (1951)
• The Light of Other Days — Stephen Baxter, Arthur C. Clarke (2000)
• The Mind Brothers — Peter Heath, Peter Heath (1967)
• The Prisoner — Thomas M. Disch (1979)
• The Robot Novels — Isaac Asimov (1954)
• The Shockwave Rider — John Brunner (1975)
• Who? — Algis Budrys (1958)

Related Ideas

• Population Control Regime
• Authoritarian Governance Model
• Body Rental Economy
• Declining Superhuman Ability
• Illness-Driven Dimensional Escape
• Locative Technology and Information Warfare
• Biological Infiltration Warfare
• Surveillance Technology Worker Ethics
• Planetary War with Involuntary Telepathy
• Code as Law in Cyberspace
• Privatized Prison-Utopia

SF Dictionary

mind-control · wormhole