Lately I’ve been reading a lot about the implementation of surveillance technology and “social credit” in China—variously described in the Western press as “dystopian,” the work of a “digital dictatorship,” “high tech authoritarianism,” or a “surveillance technostate,” Regardless of the terms used, the implication is that the system the Chinese government is building looks to be right out of the pages of a Western SF novel—1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, We—or the BBC television show Black Mirror. While traveling in China, being […]

Categories: Surveillance, Utopian Gestures, Utopias and Dystopias • Tags: distopia, making do, social credit, surveillance, tactics and strategies, Utopia