Well, we might as well be realistic - none of us have had any privacy for a very, very long time. It's just that our governments can't quite yet use it against us the way they'd like to without revealing the scope. The goal here is really just to add some additional plausibility when our privacy _is_ violated.
Remember, the panopticon observed people who were in a prison.
A shift change of the prison guards more than a material change to the prison.
Regulatory capture is real.
This is not being pushed by private companies. There is no money in it. It is being pushed by governments, and those governments use those private companies as (willing) vehicles to do things that it is illegal for them to do directly. And it is not being pushed by the democratic portions of governments, which have been minimized and weakened to the point of invisibility. None of this makes it to the ballot, "both" sides support it.
Since the turn of the millennium, all powers have been pushed to the Executive, in every Western country. And the Executive wouldn't be the Executive if he/she weren't completely compromised. Governing with 20% of the support of the public is the norm now in Western governments and institutions. If more than 20% of people support you, you're a "populist dictator."
Sam Altman owns an identity verification company for example.
If we have to live in a panopticon I think access to the data should be available to everyone. That eliminates the power imbalance and/or makes the idea of the thing distasteful to powerful people who might actually try to restore privacy and eliminate the panopticon.
Being able to accurately articulate a position one doesn't possess themselves is necessary to effectively countering it.
So that's where we are now? "If we have to live in the torture nexus, let's at least make it equitable"
But I think the latter factor wins out, so we should just oppose obviously bad things in a non-clever fashion.
I have no power to stop what's happening. I might as well make the best of it for myself and my family, and hope it becomes so bad that people who actually do have the power to stop it do something about it. Maybe it'll rise to the level that enough individual citizens will call out for change, but I continue to be amazed at what people will put up with in the name of convenience, continuation of their lifestyle, and, as it relates specifically to surveillance capitalism, shiny digital doodads and baubles that bring them temporary joy.
Capital being speech in the US, since I'm not a billionaire I have very little influence.
I have optimism and hope for people doing good things locally, but absolutely no hope large-scale problems will ever be fixed. I feel like the US political system experienced some phase change in the last 50 years, has "solidified", and is now completely unable to do anything meaningful at scale. The New Deal couldn't happen today. The interstate highway system couldn't happen today. The Affordable Care Act started off as a watered-down, weakened version of what it could have been (because anything more radical would never have passed), and the private interests have had 20 years to chip away at it, sculpting it into a driver of revenue. Heck, we can't even build mass public transit at the level of cities.
Private capital, meanwhile, soldiers on accomplishing its goals in spite of (or because of) our political gridlock.
I'd love to feel differently.
To execute your plan of buying out politicians, you would be following a blueprint already perfected by extraordinarily wealthy individuals and corporate interests. Through a system of dark money and untraceable nonprofit front groups, billionaires have successfully created what amounts to a permanent, private political machine that rivals official political parties. Following the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, the ultra-wealthy were given more or less free rein to spend as much as they want in support of their favored candidates. This ruling enabled a tiny elite to funnel limitless cash into outside organizations, essentially allowing them to buy elections and steer government policy without public accountability. As one major political donor noted, this massive spending is treated as an investment designed to yield a specific governing philosophy and tangible returns.
Your fascination with the panopticon actually echoes the early days of industrial capitalism. The original concept for the Panopticon was conceived by Samuel Bentham as a way to turn the Deptford docks into a "regular police state" to enforce strict wage labor. He envisioned building a giant central tower to guarantee the constant surveillance of workers, an idea that his brother Jeremy later famously adapted into the prison model you are familiar with today.
The infrastructure for your desired panopticon is already highly advanced through both corporate and state apparatuses. Privacy in the workplace is already profoundly insecure. Employers have wide legal latitude to monitor their workers, with surveys showing that up to two-thirds of companies actively record employee phone calls, voicemails, emails, review computer files, and use video surveillance.
The modern digital economy operates on a model of "surveillance capitalism," where companies offer seemingly "free" services in exchange for mining user engagement. This business model relies entirely on harvesting personal data from every click, post, and search to craft detailed profiles, a practice that fundamentally deemphasizes and eliminates user privacy for profit.
Government agencies have developed a staggering capacity to spy on everyday life. Police and intelligence fusion centers utilize facial recognition, "Stingray" cell phone surveillance equipment, and massive data-mining software to monitor citizens. This includes actively spying on telephone and electronic communications in direct collusion with major communications corporations. Furthermore, government contractors like Palantir provide federal agencies with software capable of tracking billions of data points, explicitly collecting information from Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, SMS texts, web surfing activity, and live telephone calls. Authorities can also readily deploy electronic devices, telephone tapping, and intercepted mail to completely bypass secrecy.
In short, the mechanisms to eliminate privacy—from the financial blueprints required to buy political compliance to the technological tools necessary for constant, panoptic observation—are already deeply embedded in modern political and economic systems.
You're welcome!