Also, re: "class oppression". Like so many things, this is definitely about class. "Surveillance" is only half of "surveillance capitalism" ;)

I don't think traditional social class plays much in that particular equation. It's a really small group of people that have the resources and access to use the surveillance data in oppressive ways. Government officials, 9+ figure-company CEOs, poor activitists are all targets.

> The thing is it doesn't have to be this way.

Agreed, I'm not as pessimistic as others but we have to either solve the funding issue for OSS work, or come up with some other means of establishing trust in proprietary devices and software.

It would be smart to let them battle it out first, if they oppose it too. Like the US waited for the Soviet Union to get seriously wounded before taking on the Nazis, because both were a threat.

We shouldn't let people with these sorts of agendas dominate the discussion on such serious topics, we don't need another stripe on the LGBT flag to signify anti-surveillance. LGBT, trans-activism, feminism, etc. etc. are, and should remain disjoint from the fight against surveillance. If we start mixing in leftist-politics into the discussion we are weakening it by pushing away people who are not left-leaning or not in support of LGBT. By leaving anti-surveillance and pro-privacy activism pure and undiluted from left-right politics, we will have a greater ability to educate the masses.

1984 has just been lapped by reality.

I think it is already a lost cause. We had the chance a decade ago to collectively show companies doing this is bad business. Instead we collectively did the opposite. You don't get a do over with this.

Maybe it is even related to this nonsense statistical thinking that has infected our group mind. Even when it doesn't apply at all, everything is a random draw from the urn.

"We just got unlucky on this draw from the urn with surveillance". Maybe next time we will have better luck even though there is no urn, draws or next time.