ljosalhusky

Thank goodness we’re finally safe, everyone! I feel so incredibly safe I can barely sleep at night — partly from relief, partly from the faint red glow of the dashboard camera evaluating my facial expressions for signs of independent thought. Remember when driving was about getting somewhere? Now the car watches you, the road watches you, the toll booth photographs you, and somewhere an algorithm decides whether your blinker-to-lane-change ratio indicates sufficient loyalty to remain a licensed citizen. And those anti-distraction cameras! You’re no longer trusted to glance at a road sign without the system assuming you’re filming a TikTok. The camera knows. The camera always knows. And the camera, unlike you, never had a stressful Tuesday.

I also adore the financial supervision. Every coffee I buy with my card is lovingly noted and stored in case someone - anyone - someday needs to review my caffeine patterns for national security purposes. Two espressos before 9 AM? Possible instability. Four beers Saturday? Risk factor. Thirteen emergency Toblerones during tax season? Irrefutable character assessment.

My phone tracks my location so faithfully I couldn’t match its dedication if I tried. It knows I went to the pharmacy Thursday. It knows I took the scenic route Friday. It probably knows I stood outside the bakery six minutes deciding whether to treat myself and walked away empty-handed - proving to whichever algorithm monitors such things that I possess both self-discipline and poor decision-making skills simultaneously.

Facial recognition cameras mean I no longer suffer the indignity of walking through a city anonymously like some 2003 peasant. I’m identified, timestamped, and filed - because a free citizen moving through public space unnoticed is clearly a missed opportunity for database enrichment.

But here’s my absolute favorite part. All this magnificent safety infrastructure - every camera, every log, every database, every tracking system - it’s all in the hands of whoever happens to be in government this season. And governments change. Today’s well-meaning bureaucrat administering your data with careful oversight is tomorrow’s populist demagogue who noticed you donated to the wrong cause, attended the wrong protest, and Googled the wrong thing on a Tuesday afternoon. Maybe you were researching a school project. Maybe you were just curious. Doesn’t matter — the search history doesn’t care about context, and neither will they.

And the beauty of the pitch? Nobody ever said “we’d like to watch everything you do forever.” They said “safety”. One word, carrying all the weight, answering all questions, and conveniently foreclosing further discussion. Safety from what? Don’t worry about it. Who controls it? Interesting. Can you influence it? Adorable that you’d ask. The safest person alive is someone in a padded cell under constant supervision. Magnificent safety record. Very low satisfaction. But completely safe - until the warden changes.

Idiocracy- 2006 Just shows where we are going…as a society. 😜