This goes for working environments too -- where it may not be ethnic or political minorities being intrinsically oppressed, but instead anyone expressing minority opinions within the context of the organization.

Open-plan surveillance workspaces are meant to produce monoculture, and a whole generation of programmers has essentially gifted that opportunity to employers by failing to insist upon minimally acceptable working conditions, in favor of an extension of college / dorm life.

One wonders why a staff that is uniformly willing to give up personal time for Whisky Thursday isn't viewed as a liability, in terms of lack of thought diversity.

But a company generally doesn't want diversity, they want predictability. Predictability as to how fast and when something will be done, predictability on the quality of the work. Sure having thought diversity in solving problems is a good thing, but look at how complicated software project scheduling is already.

This usually applies to commodity work, and there's a long history of Taylorism.

It makes a lot less sense in knowledge work, where the problems are not standardized and often solutions are unknown. In these cases, the uniformity desired through these surveillance measures makes no sense. It's fundamentally not the same as a McDonald's burger, no matter how much management wishes so.

Worse still, even if you did want homogeneity of software design output, the best way to get it is to give workers conditions in which the environment supports their productivity. Taylorized fast-food kitchens support certain types of productivity and are a rational response to that business need. But it's more of a cargo cult superficiality to try to impose the same idea on a knowledge domain where quiet and privacy are fundamental to the product.

On the other hand, if instead of productivity the employer cares more about having a visually fancy-looking space, as a means for status signaling, or cares about having a good staff on-paper to heighten an acquihire valuation, then open-plan makes more sense. It's bad for the employees though, because of course the employer can't admit to hiring people just for status, show, or credential, so they have to at least feign concern over productivity, thus putting knowledge workers in the bind of having to be productive in a fundamentally anti-productive setting.

The entire offshoring software industry is already Taylorised. I'm not saying it's good or efficient but it is the reality of large software projects.

The architects are onshore and have never coded in their lives. They draw boxes on whiteboards and feed UML to offshore dev 'factories'. That UML gets decomposed so that you will have factory lines of developers producing classes (sometimes just methods) in isolation. LOC is frequently used as a productivity measure by their management. It's about as far from software as craft as you can get.

The whole having to be productive in an otherwise anti-productivity environment seems like some sort of weird hazing ritual.

Though I still think that regardless what job one is doing (knowledge work or factory), that subconsciously the company wants predictability. So maybe putting people in an environment where it is anti-productive puts people of all skills at the same basic predictable level?

That is a good point. I had never considered that they would actually Harrison Bergeron their own people, but it's entirely plausible. If they want predictability more than output, it would make sense, and then they extract value mostly just from your credential and your organizational fealty.

There is a difference between "opinions of minorities" and "minority opinions". In this case it's the latter.

Mass surveillance is meant to work against anybody and everybody

Certainly, but the point here is that it suppresses some opinions much more effectively than others.

If your opinion is already popular, you don't have to be brave: you know it's out there.

If your opinion is unpopular, knowing someone's watching may silence it altogether.

Yes. But the people who run the institutions will mostly reflect the majority and hence protect their kind.

When the society was mostly anti-gay the government machinery was used to hurt these target homosexual groups. Now that society is pro-gay we see government forcing bakers to bake cake for gay weddings.

I will not be surprised if the surveillance mechanism would be used to hurt Libertarians and anti-government people.

That's an interesting premise, do you think that the heads of e.g. the KGB were representative of the majority of Soviets? It was my impression that there was a large class distinction between the Soviet intelligence apparatus and the proverbial average Joe.

Note: I selected the USSR/KGB not for any particular resemblance to current Western intelligence agencies (much more human intelligence and shotgun mics back then) but rather because they seem to me to be the textbook case of the effects of mass, pervasive surveillance over a long time.

To give a growth hacking analogy, becoming KGB head is the final step in the funnel. To be a KGB head you should probably have qualities that 99.99% of the people do not posses. But it is wrong to say he does not represent the majority of soviets because the entry to the system and almost every other step in the funnel is highly biased towards those who conform to majority opinion.

For example when I say Donald Trump is representative of majority of conservative base I do not mean majority of conservative base is narcissist and billionaire. I basically mean Trump is pro-Gun, pro-Life, pro-Christian, anti-Gay. Because without those criteria he would not have entered the funnel in first place.

Conservatives or Liberals the current trend among American politicians is "trust us", "bend before authority", I am 100% sure no person can rise to top in American government if he does not conform to these ideas.

I haven't studied the period, but my impression was that it was very much possible for a brilliant person from humble origins to rise to the top on the basis of their skills. Though becoming outright head would probably require networking/corruption as in any large organization.

That makes no sense. Why would mass surveillance be used against people that support the regime?

To make sure they support it, and to make sure they keep supporting it. Compliance today does not buy you a free pass tomorrow.

Regimes come and go; metadata is forever.

Look at Xi Jinping's regime. Lots of party officials, members of the politburo, etc. who while they support the party itself may not support Mr. Xi, or vice versa.

Even strong (executive power) leaders like Mr Xi or Mr Putin do not rule over a monolith.

To maintain their support.

One day they may not.

Snoopers’ Charter: Only amendment politicians have submitted to controversial bill is to stop MPs being spied on

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

Everyone except those in power.

That seems a little too simplistic; the parent example of McCarthyism was used to drive people out of the government so the "power/no power" binary doesn't seem adequate.