I don't think, "Most people are oblivious," they just don't care and/or don't understand the implications.

The idea that the government can use your mobile phone to spy on you is so widely understood that even the dumbest popcorn movies make sure to show fugitives ditching their phones and criminals collecting/discarding them before they discuss business without explaining why. Everybody understands the purpose of a "burner" phone.

Yes, most everyone knows that they can be tracked.

The point is that we voluntarily paid/pay to build and maintain the tracking infrastructure. That's what most people don't realize.

>I don't think, "Most people are oblivious," they just don't care and/or don't understand the implications.

But they do, that's what's baffling. The number of people I have heard parrot the "Bill Gates put a tracking chip in the vaccine" has me both baffled and worried. These are people who appear to be otherwise completely sane and mostly rational. When I've pointed out that's literally what their phone does, so why would Bill Gates waste any money putting something in a vaccine (ignoring that's not even physically possible) - I get a "well that's different".

They are concerned, but as a non-technical person for some reason they just can't quite wrap their heads around what is happening.

>But they do, that's what's baffling

I think it's more that there's no other option.

They need their phone, and they don't like all the tracking just like you or I don't like the tracking, but that's their only option if they want to use a phone.

They can, but they wish it weren't true. Cell phones have an obvious huge upside, and society has adjusted itself so that you pretty much have to have one. (Ever asked to use somebody's phone?). Meanwhile, one of these technocrats is pushing a vaccine that might as well be magic, developed in an unusually short time, to cure a disease that people think might occasionally kill somebody else, but probably not them. The response makes complete sense.

Would it not lead to a horrifying dystopia, it wold be interesting to see how the response changed it the vaccine were marketed as a status symbol.

It is notable that vaccine acceptance has gone up now that it is widely available, which also coincides with the departure of an influential politician who had been downplaying the significance of the disease.

It's hard to disentangle the two effects, but there is a burgeoning symbol of status in people literally displaying their vaccine cards. It hasn't completely undone the damage, but it does seem to ameliorate it.

Most people simply have no choice unless you are willing to switch to GNU/Linux phones. Those are not 100% ready for everything yet.

It doesn't matter what your phone runs. As long as it's communicating with the network, the carrier knows its location.

Cell towers is far from the only tracking possibility.

Yes but it's the only one that's a requirement if you want to actually use your phone.

Not a silver bullet unless you never let your phone talk to a cell tower - in which case it stops being a phone and starts being a miniature tablet.

At least with Librem 5 you can use the hardware kill switch whenever you need privacy.

15 years ago was 2006. Almost every adult carried a cellphone everywhere back then.

I certainly didn't. But will concede I was definitely a late adopter.

It was 66%. Most adults, but less than “almost every”.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

I don't know if people are oblivious - it's just that there are a lot of perceived benefits for the user of the 'tracking device'. Tracking people is a byproduct of all the services a modern phone offers (due to technical or monetization reasons).

Those devices have addictive properties, especially casual mobile games and social media.

In the past addictive properties were enough to get people to do absurd things like roll up leaves, light them on fire, and deliberately huff the smoke. That's arguably more harmful than what mobile devices do to us.

I watched Citizen of the State recently, and the paranoid old man in that movie looks like a normie today.

I think you mean Enemy of the State?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_State_(film)

>> Citizen of the State

> I think you mean Enemy of the State?

Given the topic of mass surveillance, this doesn't sound like much of a distinction...

"Hey wiretap, can bunnies eat pancakes?"

15 years ago people did carry a tracker on their pocket already.