Is spying on our elites enough?

post by samuelshadrach (xpostah) · 2025-04-04T21:00:11.050Z · LW · GW · 0 comments

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  I guess I'm basically asking would you rather I work on increasing resilience of wikileaks (or similar orgs), or on uncensorable social media.
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Disclaimer

• If you think ASI is coming in next 5 years, this post is not for you.
• I'm writing this post quickly based on what's at the top of my head. If you want a more structured post with more references and research, let me know.

Nowadays I spend a lot of time thinking about what a world with very little secrecy would look like. And what I could do to build a world with lesser secrecy.

I have identified a bunch of possible upsides but I'm still trying to figure out whether this is really the project for me. Key crux is whether fixing this problem will in fact fix a bunch of other problems in the world or not.

Let's say we had live footage of every military leader giving orders and every person being murdered as a result. Let's say we had footage of their childhood and their lifestyle and what shaped them into deciding this was the best way to live their life. Let's say we knew exactly what were the motivations and beliefs of every person at OpenAI and Deepmind and Neuralink and whoever eventually ends up working on human genetic engineering or gene drives. And we knew exactly what all personal decisions they've taken as a result, be it purchasing bunkers or rearranging their personal life or whatnot.

Spying on someone is inherently a low trust move and many of our elites have proven they deserve low trust.

Is trying to get more information out the biggest point of leverage for me?

There have already been leaks of multiple powerful organisations. Sometimes it has lead to political change and sometimes it hasn't.

Another key piece of the puzzle seems to be uncensorable social media where people can form consensus on voting in an alternate leader or an alternate ideology.

I guess I'm basically asking would you rather I work on increasing resilience of wikileaks (or similar orgs), or on uncensorable social media.

Both of these seem high likely to me over the next say 30 years. If I work on them I'd just be accelerating their arrival.

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