On 1: I agree it’s not clear that having surveillance would make us less likely to implement other defence mechanisms because of a false sense of security. I think it’s more plausible that having surveillance makes us less likely to implement other defence mechanisms because implementing new policies takes time, political energy, and money. I think it makes sense to think about policymaking as a prioritisation question, and probably controversial and expensive policies are less likely to be implemented if the issue they address is perceived to have been dealt with. So I’d expect implementing perceived effective surveillance to decrease the likelihood that other defence mechanisms aimed at reducing GCRs are implemented. (Although this isn’t necessarily the case—maybe increasing surveillance makes other extreme defence mechanisms less politically costly?) This is isn’t an argument I make in my post, so thanks for pushing back!
I like your point on supposedly effective surveillance as a kind of bluff. I think this imposes a lower bound on the effectiveness of global surveillance, as even ineffective surveillance will have this deterrence effect. However, I’d guess that over time, malicious actors will realise that the system is less effective than they initially thought, and so the risk from malicious actors creeps back up again. (This is speculative: I’m guessing that some actors will still try things and realise that they don’t get caught, and that there’s some communication between malicious actors. My immediate reaction was “man, it’d be hard for a surveillance system that wasn’t that effective to be considered effective for a really long time, won’t people find out?”)
On 2 and 3: yeah, I agree with you here that totalitarianism risk is the main problem, and I should have been clearer about that in my post. I can imagine (like you say) that in a world where trusted global surveillance has always been the norm, we remain weird and free-thinking.
On 1: I agree it’s not clear that having surveillance would make us less likely to implement other defence mechanisms because of a false sense of security. I think it’s more plausible that having surveillance makes us less likely to implement other defence mechanisms because implementing new policies takes time, political energy, and money. I think it makes sense to think about policymaking as a prioritisation question, and probably controversial and expensive policies are less likely to be implemented if the issue they address is perceived to have been dealt with. So I’d expect implementing perceived effective surveillance to decrease the likelihood that other defence mechanisms aimed at reducing GCRs are implemented. (Although this isn’t necessarily the case—maybe increasing surveillance makes other extreme defence mechanisms less politically costly?) This is isn’t an argument I make in my post, so thanks for pushing back!
I like your point on supposedly effective surveillance as a kind of bluff. I think this imposes a lower bound on the effectiveness of global surveillance, as even ineffective surveillance will have this deterrence effect. However, I’d guess that over time, malicious actors will realise that the system is less effective than they initially thought, and so the risk from malicious actors creeps back up again. (This is speculative: I’m guessing that some actors will still try things and realise that they don’t get caught, and that there’s some communication between malicious actors. My immediate reaction was “man, it’d be hard for a surveillance system that wasn’t that effective to be considered effective for a really long time, won’t people find out?”)
On 2 and 3: yeah, I agree with you here that totalitarianism risk is the main problem, and I should have been clearer about that in my post. I can imagine (like you say) that in a world where trusted global surveillance has always been the norm, we remain weird and free-thinking.