Technology Persuasive Essay

According to “A Surveillance Society” By William E. Thompson there are camera everywhere, watching everything you do at all times. Cameras are found everywhere and are used by everyone, including the governments of the world who use it the most to track its citizens and potential threats to the safety of their nation. People are more willing to be watched in order to feel safer everywhere they go such as the supermarket to your own workplace. Governments can now look into your email, travel records, credit history and your personal life without your knowledge of them ever doing so, even your neighbors can now easily buy tools to spy on others or to protect themselves from danger; Things such as security cameras

When humanity fears surveillance, people become afraid to speak their minds and hearts freely to their government or to anyone else. The film Minority Report by Steven Spielberg (2002), novella Minority Report by Phillip. K. Dick (1956), and book 1984 by George Orwell all depict that future surveillance is nothing short of overbearing in an unquestionably totalitarian society. Spielberg, Dick and Orwell envisage surveillance in the dystopian future as overbearing, invasive and slightly petrifying, and provide a clear caution about the overuse of surveillance in the modern world.

It provides an optimistic vision of surveillance in which, like Truman, American’s will overcome the burdens of surveillance and remain autonomous anonymous citizens even in the face of increasing technological surveillance capabilities. It presents the ills of such a situation of excessive surveillance and the danger it poses. Truman is driven to the brink of insanity when he realizes that his life is not what it seems, but more than that, it is a moral issue. It is not right that Truman is unable to live a normal life and make his own choices. The audience, both within the film and watching the film, sympathize with Truman whose wife and best friend were both cast to play these roles. The film draws attention to its constructed nature and the impossibility of maintaining such a level of surveillance and control, even over a single subject like Truman, evident in his eventual escape. Person of Interest does not question the surveillance state, it utilizes it. The program’s pilot does not criticize the technological circumstances upon which the plot is founded. Instead, by blatantly utilizing surveillance, through The Machine, it suggests that hyper-surveillance is a necessary aspect of preventing and fighting crime. It cites 9/11 for

A Surveillance Society by Thompson and Hickey is about how public surveillance is everywhere, looking at everything, and is never turned off. First, the PATRIOT Act was passed by Congress shortly after 9/11, and has allowed the government to start watching people. Ever since then the U.S. has increased its use of cameras in public places. Today, just about everywhere businesses and shoppers are, there are cameras. High-tech surveillance devices are more prevalent across populated areas. Corporations, agencies and even individuals monitor social areas with surveillance. With today’s technology, cameras are able to scan images and identify people. Organizations regularly share databases, swapping personal information. Some are opposed

This article argues that surveillance is becoming increasingly normal across the USA and the world and that this is changing our freedom and security. It mentioned that globalization and migration of people from different countries some who threaten our country has made this surveillance more necessary to protect our citizens from theorists acts. The article uses examples of video-surveillance to make this case and to argue for both stronger resistances to calls to make our human rights more flexible in a risky time.

Almost everything someone does in today’s society is under surveillance. It does not matter if you are surfing the web, going to the store, or even driving a car; it is almost always under surveillance. While Michel Foucault does not specifically talk about modern surveillance technology in Discipline & Punish (1977), much of the primitive technology that he does talk about is directly related with today’s surveillance technology. Michel Foucault believes that societal surveillance began to take effect during the 1600’s to control the masses. Many modern surveillance technologies reflect Foucault’s ideas helping to categorize, differentiate, hierarchize, and exclude people from the masses.

Surveillance is not a new thing. In fact, espionage, tracking, and sleuthing were part of society ever since 5000 B.C. But in the rise of the modern era, the idea of surveillance in the public eye serves as a controversial topic of discussion. People everywhere complain about the existence of security cameras, government tracking, and the right to privacy. Such problems, however, are not due to the sudden discovery of surveillance, but the modern abuse of it. Seeing the disastrous effects of over surveillance from George Orwell’s 1984, the public rightfully fears societal deterioration through modern surveillance abuse portrayed in Matthew Hutson’s “Even Bugs Will Be Bugged” and the effects of such in Jennifer Golbeck’s “All Eyes On You”. The abuse of surveillance induces the fear of discovery through the invasion of privacy, and ensures the omnipresence of one’s past that haunt future endeavors, to ultimately obstruct human development and the progress of society overall.

The technology in today’s society is far more advanced than the technology that Orwell describes in his novel, 1984. In today’s society, almost everyone has a cell phone, which is just one of the many ways that government would be able to keep tabs on someone. In 1984, the main source of surveillance that the Party used was the telescreen, but today, the government has the technology to be able to create systems of surveillance far worse than the telescreens. Today’s technology would give the government the possibility to match and surpass the level of surveillance that the Party had. While this level of surveillance would be possible in today’s society, today’s governments could never reach the same level of control and power that the Party had in 1984.

Brave New World, a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley, expresses concerns on the usage of science and the impending doom of the world. Huxley repetitively stresses the significance of science and technology in Brave New World using myriad references throughout the novel. Huxley foreshadows that with scientific and technologic achievements, comes with a heavy governmental interference, which is evident in today’s society. Through scientific and technological advances, the government in Brave New World, is able to regulate culture using soma which keeps the inhabitants in a false sense of happiness. Soma, a drug used for instant gratification relieves emotional trauma and becomes a symbol for how powerful the influence of science and technology is on society.

Surveillance has been a popular theme used by the entertainment industry in the last two decades. Films like the Bourne film series (2002-2012), Equilibrium (2002), V for Vendetta (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), Eagle Eye (2008), The Hunger Games film series (2012-2015) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) each use and play with this sense that the world is being watched by mysterious, dangerous, and clandestine men in black. Reality television programming, including shows like Big Brother and Survivor also use the idea that everyone is being watched. There is always an eye in the sky. Every action is captured, monitored, and recorded. In the reality of the 21st century, this has become true as shown with the NSA leaks revealed

In “A Surveillance Society” by William E. Thompson and Joseph V. Hickey it states how surveillance technologies have impacted modern day society. In the writing the authors begin by talking about how surveillance technologies have become a growing trend everywhere in the world.

Regardless of what we are doing at any given point of the day, we are constantly being watched. Whether we drive to our local market, in our own house, or sitting at a traffic light, surveillance technology sees our every move and what is even more terrifying is the idea that the government has access to it all. In the fictional book, V for Vendetta, written by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, government surveillance is a large portion of what the story is written on. In this book, their government is run by a group called Norsefire and within that are different institution’s and a computer system that ultimately broadcasts to the entire country about liberty and rights, but behind all of this is power. It is a corrupt government and by having

The government, without the ability to control the population and those within the government would be in shambles. The book states,”The government needs to be a little bit more careful with who they let work for them”. Meaning that the government needs to be run by people who help the people not those who will use the equipment to hurt others. That's why using the surveillance was okay. Because the government uses it to stop people from doing bad things.

Look around. Everyone has their faces buried into their phones, laptops, iPads, etc. Many people would say that technology is taking over in our everyday lives. I, however, beg to differ. Technology is one of the best things the human race could get their hands on. Yes it seems like everything is in “the Cloud” or everyone is tweeting, reposting, Snapchatting, and liking everything. But how I see it is, a way for people to communicate and share ideas they have with other like-minded people, accomplish papers and essays without having to go to a library because whatever device you use, has a search engine that can search any question you have. As an aspiring computer programmer, technology will always play a role in my career because someone is responsible for the software and programs that allow a computer to run, the world around us is always adapting, and without technology, where would computer programmers be? If I received the Evolve IP Cloud Scholarship, then the scholarship would be able to open so many doors for me because I would be able to afford continuing my education.

The movie reveals that giving government too much panoptic control does not function as an effective means of discipline in today’s society. This idea of always being watched is also very common in our lives. Although people may not realize it, citizens are being watched almost everywhere they go and by many different people. Such as, browsing the Internet, shopping at Wal-Mart, even attending a leisurely event at a football or basketball game. Others constantly observe each other and this sometimes affects how society acts. Cameras in banks make criminals think twice about robbing them and the government monitoring the Internet makes people cautious of downloading music.