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this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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That's going to be unpopular to say around here, but the truth is that technology is largely amoral.
While the tech may be amoral, its still implemented and utilized by pricks whose goal is control.
The real conundrum is: once you have unique identifiers on vehicles - which pretty much all countries with cars have - where's the line? Do you require people to visually read the plates and write them down on paper? Who is allowed to keep databases of the information? How do you prevent people from keeping their own private databases? How do you prevent someone from creating a dash-cam app that does GPS/time coded databasing of all plate numbers it observes while driving? If a neighborhood HOA wants to network all their dash (and fixed location) apr-cam information into a central database, when does it become too much to allow? And how do you possibly enforce overstepping of the limits?
Scenario: A HOA has fixed cam automatic plate reader information and video evidence that proves XM3 5D9 was out smashin' mailboxes on Friday night. The HOA president is cruising downtown Saturday morning and finds XM3 5D9 parked on the street, using his dash mounted apr software, calls the cops (in a vain attempt) to have them come arrest the mailbox smashers who were recorded in close-up 4K high def night vision doing the deed from the window of their car. This feels close to the over-stepping limit, but what if there were no cameras or software involved and the same XM3 5D9 plate ID was used by the same people to make the same accusation of the same mailbox smashers, this time based on telephoto chemical film pictures?
This also ignores the fact that the person in the car the second time XM3 5D9 was spotted is not necessarily the same person in the car the first. So one could easily false accuse.
Yup, and its important to communicate that or we risk losing our voice in the general public and look like Luddites
Just FYI, using the term luddite derogatorily may not be as cool as you think it is. They were essentially an instance of organized labor flexing their power and not really "against technological advancement" like the term gets bandied about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
I am aware, but i am using it in a colloquial sense. And you understood my point; which is exactly how the general public that needs to be swayed will interpret it.
You can and should make your point without denigrating labor movements.
Originally the Pedants were a group of trans atheist Linux users from Pedantia, so I won’t use it as a pejorative in this context.
Uhh okay? Language and its use changes. If you want to be effective in getting your point across you need to keep up. The choir in lemmy isn't who needs to be persuaded.
Feel free to be technically correct, but I would like to see the idea take mass adoption instead.
Despite the memes, also typically not the best kind of correct.
Before someone says it.
The problem with surveillance tech is that even if it was initially implemented with the best intentions by good people that aren't seeking to abuse it, it can change hands.
That is true
Enabling a surveillance state is not amoral.
Your phrasing seems to imply I said it was, but I never said that.
If you are in a discussion about the development and deployment of technology to facilitate a surveillance state, then saying “technology is neutral” is the least interesting thing you could possibly say on the subject.
In a completely abstract, disconnected-from-society-and-current-events sense it is correct to say technology is amoral. But we live in a world where surveillance technology is developed to make it easier for corporations and the state to invade the privacy of individuals. We live in a world where legal rights are being eroded by the use of this technology. We live in a world where this technology is profitable because it helps organizations violate individual rights. If you live in the US, as I do, then you live in a world where federal law enforcement agencies have become completely contemptuous of the law and are literally abducting innocent people off the street. They use the technology under discussion here to help them do that.
That a piece of tech might potentially be used for a not-immoral purpose is completely irrelevant to how it is actually being used in the real world.
And that is what we need to focus our messaging on. The evil people and institutions enabling this as those are permanent. Tech comes and goes (and should not be anthropomized). Focusing on the tech just means in institution looks for another path. Focusing on the institution is to block the at the source.
“Technology is neutral” is a bromide engineers use to avoid thinking about how their work impacts people. If you are an engineer working for flock or a similar company, you are harming people. You are doing harm through the technology you help to develop.
The massive surveillance systems that currently exist were built by engineers who advanced technology for that purpose. The scale and totality of the resulting surveillance states are simply not possible without the tech. The closest alternatives are stasi-like systems that are nowhere near as vast or continuous. In the actual world the actual tech is immoral. Because it was created for immoral purposes and because it is used for immoral purposes.
The technology enables the surveillance state. Therefore the technology is not amoral.