The Ascent of Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is on the rise. The impulse to control one’s fellow man has always been there. But in other times it was less practicable to monitor, to pressure, or to dominate, as it is today. The total ubiquity of the Internet has proven an ill-fated tool for surveillance. Those technologies that we thought would liberate us, that we thought would usher in decentralization and a blooming of free thought, have instead rendered unto our potential masters weapons of incredible power. In pursuing the convenience of the smartphone, we have inadvertently neutered ourselves. With every Google search, we further deepen our bonds by which they know everything about us. With every Tweet, in which we thought ourselves expressive, we furnish evidence of our true thoughts to be indexed, searched, and deep-learnt by future generations of algorithms. The impulse to control is today equipped with tools that even the most intrusive police states of yesteryear could not have even imagined. Never before have we been so supine. These are indeed scary times.
The impulse towards Authoritarianism is everywhere. In the recent 2016 election we were foreordained with an authoritarian figure by the time the majority parties chose their nominees. Trump, the winner, is a buffoonish strongman who can turn the immense powers of the state, and the wide latitude of the Presidency, to ends that flow directly from his whims. We may only guess at these. We are like peasants trying to divine the intentions of the king who has life and death power over them. The US President has the power to kill American citizens without trial, to hold them without trial, to surveil them without limit, to make war without approval, and to pursue virtually any ends in the name of the state’s interest. Our President-Elect openly proclaimed the need to torture more aggressively, to torture the family members of our enemies, and thereby to make a mockery of any vestige of moral superiority we once had.
And to oppose him ran another blatant authoritarian, Hillary Clinton, whose impulses to control information, to surveil, and open propensity to military solutions, made her just as bad. Don’t kid yourself. Had she won she would have been just as domineering. Hillary was one of the principal opponents of encryption, calling for it to be ‘regulated’: codespeak for mandatory government back-doors.
We were doomed from the start. Somehow the national mood, perhaps even the global mood, has turned sour. The people yearn for a strongman.
Technology has made the Authoritarians stronger than ever. The UK just passed a law enabling it to record every UK citizen’s internet history for 12 months. Western governments are not even embarrassed about this sort of thing anymore. There is no longer any pretense against total government intrusion into our data. If you think otherwise you have totally deluded yourself. The government, ours, theirs, everyone’s, should be assumed to be prying into every data-store within their physical grasp. If Western governments with histories of steadfast commitment to privacy and freedom of speech, such as the US and the UK, can so brazenly intrude into our personal lives, what hope is there for the openly dictatorial regimes around the world? If the US can force Yahoo to surrender our emails, do you really think that other countries, where the historic commitment to privacy may be far weaker, won’t also?
The growth of the Internet has made us uniquely susceptible to an intrusion into our lives so total, it would make Stalin’s NKVD salivate at the thought. In the old days, whole armies of informants were necessary to produce a noisy picture of any given citizen’s thoughts. But with one’s Google history, or one’s emails, or one’s data, it is very easy to create an extremely accurate picture. The government may learn things about someone that even their closest friends may not know. It’s not just a few undesirables who are targeted, but everyone.
The pervasiveness of the Internet means we live virtually our whole lives online nowadays. And yet all of this may be exposed and turned against us. We aren’t even aware of it. The tentacles of intrusion have penetrated so deeply into our neurons, that we feel it natural that our emails are recorded, our pictures catalogued, our searches sorted by patriotic reliability. This begs another question, namely, what cultural damage will result from whole generations growing up under the knowing thumb of the government, penetrating their data, their innermost thoughts, their central being?
Resignation and complacency dominate. With the Snowden leaks we professed shock and outrage. But over time we grew used to it. Now we use the internet assuming we are being monitored. We act accordingly. We are like a sullen, conquered people who have lost the will to resist.
The government does not just control our communications and our data, they control our money as well. Virtually all of our money and financial assets are digital now. They are administered by central parties, our banks and brokerages, who are themselves completely dominated by government. Our funds may be frozen and monitored at any time. In fact financial privacy is itself completely illegal. To own something without their permission is considered totally illegitimate. Whatever you own, it is by their say-so.
These are scary times. But there is some recourse. Just as the lazy application of technology has rendered us vulnerable, a disciplined application of encryption may save us. The government loathes encryption because it obeys no outside laws. It gives us true independence, without human arbitration. In an encrypted system, only the mathematical rules governing access need apply. Arbitration is purely mechanical and transparent. Every participant knows what they are getting into. It’s open source.
Encryption will be the key to the survival of individualism in the coming Authoritarian future.
In a world where everything is online, and everything online is susceptible to the state, only encryption can protect our privacy. Privacy is such a weak word. It’s more than that. It’s our innermost self, our expressive self, our true self. The self that speaks its true thoughts without fear of judgment. We must have encryption and anonymity to save ourselves.
Bitcoin too, will save us. Decentralized, digital money living apart from government arbitration, Bitcoin is hated by government just as encryption is. It is just as essential. In a world of digital money, in which physical cash is all but extinct, in which private property does not really exist, a self-arbitrating system like Bitcoin will be essential. When the government comes for your digital wealth, or inflates it to nothing, people will flock to a secure, decentralized cryptocurrency alternative.
Guard yourself. History teaches us that if something is possible, it will surely happen eventually. The tools to control us, to intimidate us, and to denude us have never been so powerful. The very same technologies we love to use are also little chains binding us under the power of the Authoritarians. Moreover the national mood has never been so bitter and morose. The combination is utterly toxic. Our best hope are encrypted and decentralized systems that can preserve the flame of individuality.
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