It takes very little creativity to imagine this being abused. Choose a few keywords, and you can easily identify everyone in the U.S. with any significant civil libertarian.
Once you've got the list, all you have to do is prevent these people from getting political power, and voila, 1984.
The robot thing definitely takes more creativity to think of than that.
More generally, I tend to think that all Brute Force methods are the most crude, and a last resort even in a tyranny.
I mean, if you believe that there are people with such an intent as to dominate us with technology, then why is it such a stretch to imagine that it's exactly what's happening now with the NSA? It would seem a little more practical for those megalomaniac billionaires to use something like the super-secret TIA, NSA-spying, etc. than to build an army of robots.
Does the government literally need to create a killer robot and stamp "USA" on it for you to be concerned? Because, you know they've done that also. They call them drones.
Again, I find it odd that you think it's more likely that the crazy billionaires will unleash an army of killer robots on the population. I think more of the public is concerned about what's actually happening right now with NSA-spying, etc. than you assert, and certainly it's a more pressing concern for many more reasonable people than your killer robot army.
It just boggles the mind that a person who is concerned about the potential for a wild, sci-fi future of killer robot armies is at the same time so nonchalant about his government's recently confirmed, actually occurring, secret mass-spying campaign on innocent citizens.
In the context of discussing futuristic dystopia (which I think is unlikely in general given historical trends), surveillance doesn't worry me but robots do. That's because I believe it's entirely possible for whatever negative impact arises from surveillance to be contained through the majoritarian processes. It's been worse before and it's gotten better so we have historical evidence that it's something that can be overcome. We don't know what happens when you don't need to recruit hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, people with families and friends and ties in their communities, as soldiers in order to control the population of a country. That's uncharted territory.
I have a deep and abiding faith in the masses of ordinary people. I don't think you can control large-scale public opposition with surveillance. It certainly didn't do Egypt's previous regime any good. I think even China, with its far more massive surveillance state, will be unable to oppose majoritarian opposition when its time comes. That's why surveillance doesn't worry me, even if it exists today.
It should be noted that even if the NSA is collecting every bit of plain-text data that flows over the internet, minority groups have far more ability to communicate securely today than they did in say the time of MLK. I don't think the NSA can break strong encryption today, but I'd bet they were reading MLK's mail back then. The NSA certainly has a lot more information than the FBI did back then, but it's all low-grade crap that's almost entirely useless for population control.
Why? Didn't a mass of ordinary people once support Hitler? Didn't a mass of ordinary American people once own slaves? Don't a mass of ordinary American people now become riled upon like monkeys over the words 'socialism' and 'Muslims'? Isn't there another rising tide of racism towards black youth (because of the social unrest in their communities -- with the flash mobs and all: http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/112807564.html?page=1
I think you're also underestimating the gov't's ability to shape public opinion, subtly through both propaganda and surveillance. Hollywood has been in bed with American gov't for a long long time as was pointed out by another user:
"The major exception here is the Department of Defense, which has an ‘open’ but barely publicized relationship with Tinsel Town, whereby, in exchange for advice, men and invaluable equipment, such as aircraft carriers and helicopters, the Pentagon routinely demands flattering script alterations."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/lights-camera-covert-action-the... http://original.antiwar.com/sean-a-mcelwee/2013/04/28/propag...
Do you recall any big American movie in the last decade (or even more) that painted America's military in a non-positive light? I don't.
And re: current surveillance, hasn't the gov't now practically established a Panopticon? http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/07/2120141/why-the-...
And, you know, there's also something very oddly circular about the parent's claims of being comforted by a "deep and abiding faith" in the masses of ordinary people.
For one, on other posts, he has been really adamant about declaring that the masses don't care about NSA-surveillance. So, why does he have such a deep abiding faith? I mean, at what point does he think the masses will be moved to action? In a sense, he's saying that because they haven't yet been moved to action, the offenses don't rise to a level of real concern. But, that's completely circular. It could just as well be taken as evidence that there is no reason to have such faith.
The other thing is that all of this is done in secret. So, how on earth will the masses even know that we've reached the point at which it's time to exercise their power? We caught a break with the Snowden leak. But, there's certainly no guarantee of such in the future, not to mention that even now we have no idea what else is going on beyond what Snowden revealed.
In total, it seems an extremely disingenuous argument to respond to the NSA scandal with a nonchalant, "oh, none of what is feared will likely come to pass. We'll just magically discover other secrets and at just the right time, the masses will spring into action and save the day. So, let's all ignore it for now."
"Killer robot-wielding billionaires on the other hand..."
Sorry. Had to throw that last bit in there.
But you cannot be accused of being uninteresting.
I mean, you spend so much time here smacking down people's concerns about very real things that are happening in the news as we speak. NSA-spying, growing government power, curtailed liberties, etc. You have a tendency to characterize people on the other side of that argument as conspiracy theorists, or otherwise irrational and on the fringe.
But, what keeps you up at night is the possibility of an army of killer robots controlled by a couple of multi-billionaire megalomaniacs holed up in a subterranean fortress.
Wow.