Research interests I don't currently have time to develop alone

Stuart_Armstrong

Research interests I don't currently have time to develop alone — LessWrong

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I don't understand this distinction you're trying to make between autonomy and freedom.

Autonomy is mostly a negative right -- it's a right to be free from interference and coercion.

Freedom is both a negative and a positive right -- it's the lack of restrictions (negative) but it's also the capability to do things (positive).

Also, you haven't explained how mass surveillance interferes with individual autonomy

Do you think your behavior would change if you knew that every moment of your life was observed and recorded by government agents?

Or, simpler, have you read 1984?

Stuart_Armstrong13y40

Or, simpler, have you read 1984?

Can we avoid mentioning 1984 in surveillance discussions? I've encountered many anti-surveillance arguments that eventually boiled down to "1984 is scary". But 1984 was a work of fiction, and as far as predictions go, it was wrong all over the place.

I want to be able to phrase good anti-surveillance arguments that people will find just as valid as if 1984 had never been written.

0AlexMennen13y

In that case, anything that a government (or any other external agent) does to decrease someone's freedom also decreases their autonomy, unless you want to redefine "interference" too. If you take away my capability to do things, you are interfering with me. Based on the examples you provided, it sounds to me like the difference between autonomy and freedom is that "autonomy" is an applause light, so limits to freedom that you approve of aren't limits to autonomy, but limits to freedom that you don't approve of are. [...] No. All the laws that I regularly break are laws that enough people regularly break that the police would very quickly give up even pretending to enforce them. Things that aren't illegal but I wouldn't want known would rarely end up exposed even if the surveillance system did not have well-designed protections for the surveyed, simply because the government agents involved wouldn't have time to keep track of and exploit everyone's embarrassing secrets. [...] No, but I know what you are referring to. This is not an inevitable consequence of surveillance.

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Research interests I don't currently have time to develop alone

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