Not to glaze surveillance, but at the very least it can have some positive results, like in China, where it helped bring down crime to non-existent levels, and increased public safety.

You can just leave your stuff on the street and come back for it later, without worrying about theft. Whether or not it balances the negatives is another question entirely, but I think we can all agree some upsides beat no upsides any day.

As opposed to countries such as the US, Australia or the UK, where surveillance is used for nothing but spying on you and ensuring you're as miserable as physically possible. Nobody even bothers using the existing surveillance infrastructure for any positive effects. It's like everything only has the sole purpose of benefitting the oligarchs.

Similarly, the EU is slowly pushing some surveillance plans, with no thought behind them whatsoever. As of right now, they'd be a 100% net loss for everyone, everywhere, in every situation, except the tiny elite class.

I guess they just got tired of pretending lately. Even the good old "think about the children" is used less often nowadays. Soon it'll just be "submit without question or get executed."

For so many years we've been manipulated to be grateful for everything, because we could always be living in a dystopia like China. And here we are, moving in a considerably worse direction, without even the slightest benefits of those dystopian structures.

Have we forgotten the most effective ways of keeping politicians in check?