Hmmm then we are deeper into this than the world has realized. I think the gilded sheen is still there—but the rot underneath is deeper than the outside thinks.
Meaning, the mass protests that broke out in the millions across the country from 2017 to 2020–that era was the “protest era.”
What are we in now? Sure as hell not a protest era. We are way beyond.
As someone who has closely studied the evolution of spycraft from Ancient Intelligence to the development of the modern Intelligence Community—I know that because of my knowledge—I feel exactly as you say here. If I am taken out now for being too open or too loud, the side of humanity loses me in the fight. And it is so god damn easy to misstep.
We are and have been under massive constant surveillance. The facial scanning at airports has expanded to the physical border if you’re crossing by land. They say they delete your photo—but I assume they’re instead storing the biometrics. This is and will be used against us.
The tech companies in control know most of us better than we know ourselves. We are tracked every second of every day. They don’t need warrants when they already have access to profiles of data on almost every human in America. Even if we were in a normal world—the constitution generally doesn’t apply to private corporations. This is and will be used against us.
There is no safety “protesting” or organizing unless it’s done in a tight, cell operations that have some communication in between but function so that if one goes down the network stays intact. Intelligence and resistance groups survive when they’re federated.
Master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house. Organizing on a mass scale across the country without using any tech that touches our adversaries right now is not possible. So, first we must figure out how to share information quickly and easily in a way that excludes big tech capture and government capture.
Figuring this independent communication hurdle out is more important right now than getting out on the street with a geotagged phone and smiling for a drone who is sure to snag your biometric data. And I’m saying this as someone who has been in full scale car tipping rubber bullets everything on fire riots.
riyehn@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Unlike a lot of other countries where there’s been mass mobilization, there’s little recent memory of serious government oppression. Americans have generally had it pretty good when it comes to civil liberties over the last half century or so. They assume they can trust institutions like the courts to do the work of protecting democracy. So most people don’t realize how much worse things will get if they don’t actively resist now.
AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Ya… I think that’s a really good point, a scary one