The Power of Data in Surveillance

In order to collaborate on a large scale, you need to convince everybody to

believe in the same story. What really the, the, the, the

engine of history is stories.

Mm-hmm.

And they don't even need to be true.

Right.

Some of the most powerful stories in history were fictions.

Right.

Uh, but you need to get everybody, or at least a significant part of the

population, to believe in the same story, otherwise it doesn't work.

Science is not really a th- at least this is my view as a historian,

science is not really about truth. It's about power.

The real aim of science as an project, as an

establishment, is not truth, it's power.

Uh, particular individuals, particular scientists may be

very interested in the truth personally, but

as an institution, the real aim of science is

power.

Those who own the data really own the future.

Mm-hmm.

We are reaching a point in human history that we have enough biological

knowledge, and we have enough computing power,

and all you need in

order to systematically hack millions of people is just the

data.

Mm-hmm.

That to hack people means to know people better than they know

themselves.

Right.

To, to somebody in Fr- San Francisco, in Beijing, knows you-

Yeah

... knows more about you than you know about

yourself.

Mm-hmm.

About your medical condition, about your mental weaknesses, things that

you did five years ago, 20 years ago, you completely forgot about them-

Yeah

... they know it.

Right.

This is something we never faced before. Not even the KGB could do it.

Right.

And we are already beginning to see the emergence of such

total surveillance regimes-

Yeah

... in places like Xinjiang, in places like in my own home country in

Israel, we have this big laboratory of

surveillance called

the occupied territories.

Mm-hmm.

Where you have

2.5 million guinea pigs of how to completely

survey and control

a, uh, a, a population-

Yeah

...

with very few soldiers. I mean, when you look at the numbers, it's

amazing how-

Mm

... few soldiers you need-

Yeah

... to control millions of people if you have their data.