"With new technologies of surveillance, economies of scale overcome problems of cost. Since all their electronic communications can be accessed, it is no longer necessary to segregate the inmates from one another. As there is no outside world, escape becomes unimaginable. Technological progress has brought into being a system of surveillance more far-reaching than any Bentham could have conceived. Enclosing the entire population in a virtual Panopticon might seem the ultimate invasion of freedom. But universal confinement need not be experienced as a privation. If they know nothing else, most are likely to accept it as normal. If the technology through which surveillance operates also provides continuous entertainment, they may soon find any other way of living intolerable."
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Atheists from EnglandPhilosophers from EnglandCultural criticsCritics of religionUniversity of Oxford faculty
Original Language: English
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In the Puppet Theatre: A Universal Panopticon (p. 125)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gray_(philosopher)
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John Gray (philosopher)
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