Summary: an individual’s prediction that human beings will not take an action is refuted by the historical record.
Consider the case of the mighty icon of paranoia, the tin-foil hat. Back in the good old days, people worried about aliens manipulating them via radio waves.
Now we have several prospective justifications for the tin-foil hat:
– People using electrical and magnetic remote sensing to read your thoughts. Numerous scientific studies are attempting to apply it not only to traditional lie-detection, but also to control of devices like prosthetics and augmented-reality systems. The remote sensing part is not very effective at the moment (physical contact is most effective), but perhaps a checkpoint scenario might work.
– Transcranial stimulation. Applying electrical currents to the head is being explored as a learning-enhancement tool (tDCS). Any number of electrical stimulations are explored for all sorts of purposes. Of course there were always the old-skool electrical shocks. Again, the only real limitations here are the range at which the electricity is being applied.
– Cellphone radiation (although I doubt the effectiveness)
Now, I should mention that a tin foil hat won’t protect you against nano-robot sensing (e.g. that being explored for metrics and drug delivery). You’d need some other mechanism to avoid ingesting these.
As for those good old government conspiracies and fears, these are now commonplace. Some examples:
– American and Soviet plotting against various countries in the Third World. Things like Pakistan (supposedly a American Empire ally) harboring terrorists and getting away with it.
– Trans-generational spying on dissidents in numerous countries. Even in the American Empire, we talk about civil rights activists, Muslims, and black people.
– Mass surveillance techniques deployed in all sorts of countries (US post 9-11 setups, Russia’s SORM, the Beijing mafia’s Great Firewall and friends)
– Cameras everywhere, even on the roads. Even in the American Empire, feeds are now going directly to the police.
– Trans-national assassination and kidnappings/torture outside of major plots (e.g. American Empire drone warfare, Guantanamo Bay, Russian radioactivity poisoning, Beijing mafia kidnappings outside their territory and reappearances in their custody with false confession)
– Too many violations of countries’ constitutions and citizens’ due process rights to list
With American Empire divorce rates swinging between roughly 33% and 50%, extreme distrust of others is a legitimate and necessary defensive response. Systematic racism is a normal occurrence.
So when someone accuses others of paranoia, whether that is distrustful or conspiratorial, it is clear that they have no understanding of modern reality. Post Holocaust, post gulag, post bioweapons, there’s nothing you can say about any atrocity being impossible or even vastly improbable. Nor, with today’s increasing scientific capabilities, can you say that monitoring and sensing capabilities will never become comprehensive. Nor, given these foregoing facts, as well as the parlous state of interpersonal relationships and the history of discrimination, can you say that people have generally good will towards you.
Perhaps we can cling to our nightmares of alien invasion to comfort us.