Brin argues that the best defense against the risk of abuse of the surveillance state, or the risk of state and corporate corruption in general, is with sousveillance -- watching from below rather than above, the people watching the state and the corporations just as pervasively and constantly as they watch us, so that everything is out in the open.
Undoubtedly. That said, and by no means disagreeing with Brin's conclusion:
One of the problems with relying on this defence is that many people simply
won't be watching. It's a similar dilemma to the issue faced by pacifists in a war-like environment: when you're not "like that", you can't compete with those who are unless you make unnatural compromises. To retain peace and balance the pacifist must often resort to pursuit of military parity, even as they work in other, more palatable ways to change the nature of their environment to a less warlike one. Which is why Federation starships are heavily armed, of course. The non-compromising pacifist is usually out-competed, because it simply isn't in their nature to want to push back. Similarly, it's not in some people's nature to watch others - they're not inclined to do so, because they're just not interested in what other people are doing or they simply trust others to get on with their lives as they themselves do, and so they're vulnerable to those who
are inclined to monitor and judge. Also, some types of people are more inclined to monitor than others due to their default position within the group dynamics, and so imbalance sets in as they ensure the institutions are working to
their benefit, in a way with which others can't compete. As well as the pacifist analogy, I'd say it's also similar to the age-old refutal - one I use myself - to the "power corrupts" idea. It's not that political power inherently corrupts, it's that those who are driven to seek it are far more likely to use it to harmful ends or be corrupted by it than people who aren't, because the people with no interest in dominating or exploiting others aren't inclined to look for influence or power to begin with, and those who do have that interest are.
Basically, the state and the corporations will always have the advantage - not only in available resources but in mindset. Plus, the majority of people are accepting of authority, be it from those superior to them in a hierarchy either formal or implicit, or from the group, because to most people authority also stems from numbers and consensus. I've also observed that there is often a strong, almost fearful insistence on believing in the basic inviolability of the existing structures, to the extent that trying to shine a light on what's going on and suggesting that things aren't healthy or on the level causes the people to become aggressive and mocking. I know first hand what it's like to point at obvious and systematic corruption, dishonesty and infiltration only to have efforts at drawing attention to it ignored at best and often full-on attacked. I believe it's because people have an instinct to protect the tribe and the homestead and therefore aren't given to accepting the legitimacy of an arrow or even a dangerous look directed inward; only acting
outward is judgement appropriate. In short, trying to create a society where people watch the institutions as the institutions watch them is nearly impossible when you're dealing with the group dynamics of most humans. So I'd claim.
So I agree with Brin's conclusion entirely, but I don't see it happening. One only has to observe the first modern society to make a true effort - indeed a noble and valiant effort - at creating such an open and balanced system and how quickly its success and prosperity worked against it as the usual dynamic reasserted itself with a vengeance.
So the problem with Vanguard was that the decision-makers didn't feel they'd be held accountable because they were acting in the shadows. If the whole thing had been out in the open from the start, if it hadn't been poisoned by all the secrets and lies, then the pervasive public scrutiny would've compelled a more ethical approach.
Agreed, so long as the public were a community and not a bloc (which the fictional UFP can be trusted to be, of course). Individuality is the basis of ethics. A group of many individuals in concert leads to the beneficial effect you describe, I'd imagine, but the more common ideological mob mentality doesn't. Numbers mean nothing. A million people can be united in making a poor and unethical decision just as simply as two, indeed in my opinion more simply. What you describe works because of the crisscrossed webs of scrutiny from many angles, preventing social clotting. The idea - which isn't stated here, I should clarify, but might be read into the conclusion by some - that "the public" or people as a whole are "ethical" - that is, work in accordance with a given idea of ethics - strikes me as nice in theory, but falls into the tribal assumption that numeracy equates to a positive, and consequently that numbers relate to enhanced likelihood of truth or reason. "This is what everyone believes, so it's obviously true", failing to account for the fact that many people will believe it
because many other people believe it. Solidarity is valued, unrepentant dissidence frowned upon - those outside one's community are permitted to be alien, but those on the inside are not.
If a given public is a true forum for openness and transparency, it will work brilliantly to check or balance the scheming of the few, I agree; but the public is often more inclined to accept a particular narrative, its flavour determined by the same people who are entrenched in the political, legal, educational and economic structures, in which case the crowd becomes a body for justifying the decisions of those people after being fed the appropriate spin. In the UFP I can't see that being the case - they're too diverse within a strong unity, not monolithic yet atomized as people in reality are.
