Getting to Gilead:
From Surveillance to Control
Michelle Lai
Twitter @michlai007
(* these slides were crafted for a live audience. For a reader-friendly version, please DM me on Twitter @michlai007)
Getting to Gilead:
From Surveillance to Control
As consumers, we’ve come to expect
so little financial privacy
Everything, everywhere
Nowhere to hide
Normalization of info gluttony
How did we lose our marbles??
HOW & WHEN did we become
so promiscuous with our
financial data?
How did we inadvertently enable financial surveillance?
It started a long time ago
“Personal credit ratings are kept by small bureaus which are like branches of the FBI…
Such news will make even the head of the Soviet secret police gnash his teeth in envy. ”
Robert Wallace
1953, Life Magazine
“Private detectives watching… spies around the house and in the kitchen”
15 November 1873
The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper
It started a long, long time ago
Late 18th century: the Civil War sped up industrialization
Industrialization & Mass Production
Mass consumption requires advertisements
Someone’s got to buy all that stuff
Mass consumption requires credit.
Credit needs trust, trust needs… information.
Can’t lend to you if i don’t know you
But someone else can tell me about you
Can’t sell ^ to you if i don’t know you
Mass advertisements:
not everybody wants a gun…
profitably
…but can I figure out who is most likely to buy a fur coat?
Supporting Technologies
Vertical filing cabinets: a breakthrough and symbol of modernity in the late 1800s
Supporting Technologies
Teletype: communication time reduced to 1 minute (from 5 min on the telephone)
Supporting Technologies
Computers!
Consolidation,
Centralization
Statistical Analysis
Big Brother taps in
<img src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41uXdoBJMXL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" alt="The Cold War: An Illustrated History: Heritage, Andrew: 9781844259496: Amazon.com: Books"/>
1960s-1970s
Big Brother taps in
<img src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41uXdoBJMXL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" alt="The Cold War: An Illustrated History: Heritage, Andrew: 9781844259496: Amazon.com: Books"/>
2001
How does surveillance
lead to control?
CASE STUDY
The Republic of Gilead
THE HANDMAID’S TALE (1985)
by Margaret Atwood
What is Gilead?
To do:
Military
Financial Control
Extreme Religion
Coerced Reproduction
Patriarchy
Hierarchy
How it Happened
To do:
Why Gilead: Motivations
Why Gilead: Ability
“remembering the paper money, when they still had that…You had to take those pieces of paper with you when you went shopping... It seems so primitive, totemistic even, like cowry shells.”
“ Tried getting anything on your Compucard today? They've frozen them… Any account with an F on it instead of an M. All they needed to do is push a few buttons. We're cut off.”
“I guess that's how they were able to do it… all at once without anyone knowing beforehand. if there had still been portable money it would have been more difficult.”
Why Gilead: Digital Money
Why Gilead: Ability
they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.
Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.
That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary.
Things continued in that state of suspended animation for weeks… Newspapers were censored and some were closed down, for security reasons. The roadblocks began to appear, and Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn't be too careful. They said that new elections would be held, but that it would take some time to prepare
Why Gilead: Military & Emergencies
According to Margaret…
According to Margaret…
The Circle
Rise of a Strong Man
The Circle
… according to Margaret
Why Gilead: Motivations
To do:
“There are no revolutions
in times of prosperity”
How close are we
to Gilead?
We’re set up for worse than Gilead
Source: Juan Benet, “Orwellian States” February 2023
We’re set up for worse than Gilead
Normalization is the enemy
It's strange, now, to think about having a job… All those women having jobs: hard to imagine, now, but thousands of them had jobs, millions. It was considered the normal thing.
It's been a long time since I've seen skirts that short on women. The skirts reach just below the knee and the legs come out from beneath them… Their heads are uncovered and their hair too is exposed, in all its darkness and sexuality… We are fascinated, but also repelled. They seem undressed. It has taken so little time to change our minds, about things like this.
how unaccustomed I've become to seeing [makeup]… their eyes look too big to me, too dark and shimmering, their mouths too red, too wet, blood-dipped and glistening
Normalization is the enemy
Are they old enough to remember anything of the time before, playing baseball, in jeans and sneakers, riding their bicycles? Reading books, all by themselves?
And the ones after them will, for three or four or five years; but after that they won't [remember]. They'll always have been in white… they'’ll always have been silent.
You are a transitional generation, said Aunt Lydia. It is the hardest for you.
We know the sacrifices you are being expected to make… For the ones who come after you, it will be easier. They will accept their duties with willing hearts. Because they will have no memories, of any other way.
As consumers, we’ve come to expect
so little financial privacy
Michelle Lai
Twitter @michlai007
FIGHT NORMALIZATION
Michelle Lai
Twitter @michlai007
The Future
Has Not
Been Written
Questions?
Thank you!
Appendix
Sources
Excerpts from The Handmaid’s Tale
Excerpts from The Handmaid’s Tale
Excerpts from The Handmaid’s Tale
Excerpts from The Handmaid’s Tale