1
00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:05,960
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

2
00:00:05,960 --> 00:00:14,760
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

3
00:00:14,760 --> 00:00:19,160
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie teas Julie listeners.

4
00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:24,560
Speaker 1: Imagine a vast circular prison. Okay, you with me, yes, Okay,

5
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:27,640
Speaker 1: Now you step inside, and you'll find a curious arrangement

6
00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,280
Speaker 1: of the cells. Because most of this enclosed face is

7
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:33,720
Speaker 1: exactly bad. It's empty space. The quicle cells line the

8
00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:36,519
Speaker 1: circumference of the inner walls. Uh, several stories worth in

9
00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:39,720
Speaker 1: fact in their bars, all face inward toward a lone

10
00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:43,920
Speaker 1: guard tower known as the Inspector's Lodge. Okay, Now, standing

11
00:00:43,920 --> 00:00:45,839
Speaker 1: within your prison cell, you can't see any of your

12
00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:47,800
Speaker 1: fellow cell mates, can't see any of the other cells.

13
00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:51,440
Speaker 1: All you can see is this tower, and you can't

14
00:00:51,479 --> 00:00:55,040
Speaker 1: see the inspector, that supposedly man's it due to a

15
00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:58,319
Speaker 1: mesh screen. But you know he's there. You know he's watching. Uh.

16
00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:01,080
Speaker 1: You know he's referencing a detailed map of which prisoner

17
00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:04,080
Speaker 1: occupies which cell, and you know that he listens in

18
00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:07,160
Speaker 1: as well. But of course, the inspector can only look

19
00:01:07,240 --> 00:01:09,640
Speaker 1: or listen to one cell at any given moment, right,

20
00:01:10,080 --> 00:01:11,920
Speaker 1: but you never know if his attention is turned to you,

21
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:13,600
Speaker 1: so you have to assume at all times that he

22
00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:15,720
Speaker 1: might be listening to you. You have to avoid that

23
00:01:15,800 --> 00:01:17,920
Speaker 1: type to error and cognition. It's the only way to

24
00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:20,600
Speaker 1: deal with the endless uncertainty. It's safer to assume, right.

25
00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:24,080
Speaker 1: And besides that, you know that prisoners are regularly moved

26
00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:27,720
Speaker 1: to new cells based on good or bad behavior. So

27
00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:31,240
Speaker 1: I see that you have had a look inside my house.

28
00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:33,560
Speaker 1: Oh is this how you have your house arranged? Yeah?

29
00:01:33,560 --> 00:01:36,720
Speaker 1: So you're the inspector. What makes it really easy to

30
00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:39,880
Speaker 1: keep tabs on everybody? Yeah? So I think what you

31
00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:43,520
Speaker 1: have just described as something called the panopticon. Yes, And

32
00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:45,560
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this today. We're going to

33
00:01:45,959 --> 00:01:49,160
Speaker 1: look at how spaces can have the power to liberate,

34
00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:52,240
Speaker 1: as we've talked about before with labyrinths, or they have

35
00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:56,400
Speaker 1: the power to oppress. And when you think about prison

36
00:01:56,440 --> 00:02:00,200
Speaker 1: and you think about prisoners, you think about anxiety, loneliness,

37
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:03,880
Speaker 1: in vulnerability, and so this panopticon is really this idea

38
00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:08,560
Speaker 1: of these concentric circles closing in on us. Yeah. And

39
00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:10,440
Speaker 1: what's great about it is that it's not only this

40
00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:14,760
Speaker 1: this wonderful and then disturbing to varying levels design for

41
00:02:14,840 --> 00:02:17,880
Speaker 1: how we might use a physical space to have this

42
00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:21,079
Speaker 1: drastic effect on the human mind. But it also over

43
00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:23,840
Speaker 1: the years has been picked up as a philosophical idea,

44
00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:28,160
Speaker 1: as a metaphor that we apply to government, to internet culture,

45
00:02:28,560 --> 00:02:30,600
Speaker 1: you name it. I mean, you do a search for panopticon,

46
00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:33,880
Speaker 1: you will find people using it just about every uh

47
00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:40,240
Speaker 1: way they possibly can to criticize a given system of order, government, bureaucracy, etcetera. Well,

48
00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:43,480
Speaker 1: probably one of the oldest ways in which it's been

49
00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:47,480
Speaker 1: linked is this metaphor of the seeing eye of God, right,

50
00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:51,760
Speaker 1: particularly in Western culture, because when you're indoctrinated into Western culture,

51
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:56,680
Speaker 1: you're indoctrinated this idea that there's this uh, this powerful

52
00:02:56,760 --> 00:03:00,399
Speaker 1: gaze and this powerful memory of a deity looking over

53
00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:02,760
Speaker 1: all of us. Yeah, he knows what you've been doing

54
00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:07,960
Speaker 1: when you're awake. Yeah, Santa Claus and God kind of

55
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:09,919
Speaker 1: the kind of share the same space and in the

56
00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:12,520
Speaker 1: Western mindset, and and you're right to to to your point,

57
00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:15,800
Speaker 1: the idea of the inspector and the Inspector's lodge and

58
00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:18,440
Speaker 1: that tower at the center of the Penoptacon is very

59
00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:21,040
Speaker 1: much the idea of a god, but a but a

60
00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:24,800
Speaker 1: very uh, non personal god, a god that's all up

61
00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:27,040
Speaker 1: in your business. But also you have you have no

62
00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:30,280
Speaker 1: real clue as to what they look like, what they are,

63
00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:34,240
Speaker 1: what their their their ideas are regarding your fate in

64
00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:38,600
Speaker 1: this strange, strangely ordered prison. Well, this is a vengeful God.

65
00:03:39,080 --> 00:03:41,680
Speaker 1: And um, this is something that you know what came

66
00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:45,840
Speaker 1: out of the mind of a English utilitarian philosopher by

67
00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:50,920
Speaker 1: the name of Jeremy Bentham, who unveiled this architectural marvel,

68
00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:54,280
Speaker 1: these plans for this panoptic into the world. So as

69
00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:56,720
Speaker 1: you said, you know, let's revisit that again that we're

70
00:03:56,720 --> 00:04:00,680
Speaker 1: talking about two sets of concentric towers within the other,

71
00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:04,200
Speaker 1: with cells lining the outer wall, being visible to and

72
00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:07,160
Speaker 1: subject to regulation from the watcher the eye of God.

73
00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:11,000
Speaker 1: And those people they would live, they would eat, they

74
00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:14,680
Speaker 1: would sleep and work in these cells and what they

75
00:04:14,760 --> 00:04:19,359
Speaker 1: thought was constant surveillance. Now give you a little background

76
00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:23,280
Speaker 1: Jeremy Bentham with the eighteen thirty two again. He's a

77
00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:26,320
Speaker 1: British philosopher and and something of a political radical. He's

78
00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:30,359
Speaker 1: mainly known for the philosophy of utilitarianism, which elevates actions

79
00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:32,960
Speaker 1: based on their relevant consequences to the overall happiness of

80
00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:36,080
Speaker 1: everyone affected. And he had something of a hedonistic approach

81
00:04:36,120 --> 00:04:38,520
Speaker 1: to happiness, defining its simply as a matter of experiencing

82
00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:42,080
Speaker 1: pleasure and a lack of pain. Um. Now, when it

83
00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:46,640
Speaker 1: comes to his uh popticon, uh he, his approach to

84
00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:49,120
Speaker 1: it was, this is an overall good idea. He wasn't saying,

85
00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:52,520
Speaker 1: I have a great humanity crushing concept. I want to

86
00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:54,920
Speaker 1: they all in the world, you know, he was saying, Look,

87
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:57,000
Speaker 1: prisons are a mess. We're in this. We're in the

88
00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,240
Speaker 1: midst of of of overall attempts to form our prisons

89
00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:03,840
Speaker 1: and make them more effective and make them less horrifying.

90
00:05:04,279 --> 00:05:06,320
Speaker 1: So here's one way we can do it, and we

91
00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:09,720
Speaker 1: can make it more cost effective and overall just more

92
00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:12,800
Speaker 1: effective as well. Because if you have a couple of

93
00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:15,880
Speaker 1: guards in a central tower watching over everyone, then you

94
00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:19,479
Speaker 1: don't have guards that are going, you know, on the

95
00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:21,880
Speaker 1: beat to every single cell and looking over right, so

96
00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:25,360
Speaker 1: you have less manpower that actually has to enforce this

97
00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:27,919
Speaker 1: feeling that you're being surveiled. Yeah, you end up with

98
00:05:27,960 --> 00:05:30,440
Speaker 1: four guards that you're to only two of which are

99
00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:32,880
Speaker 1: actually paid because you have the two guys, you know,

100
00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:34,919
Speaker 1: one guy maybe walking around. You have one guy in

101
00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:37,840
Speaker 1: the tower, and then you have fear and uncertainty, and

102
00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:39,760
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay for those because those guys

103
00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:43,760
Speaker 1: are are are summoned out of the very physicality of

104
00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:46,920
Speaker 1: the structure. Yeah, and it's actually compounded that this this

105
00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:51,800
Speaker 1: this fear by this idea of having those cells being illuminated,

106
00:05:51,839 --> 00:05:55,120
Speaker 1: but the observation tower actually being dark, so that the

107
00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:57,680
Speaker 1: prisoners could be observed all the time. They wouldn't be

108
00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:00,359
Speaker 1: able to tell when they were being observed, and so

109
00:06:00,400 --> 00:06:02,680
Speaker 1: the goal is for them to learn to act as

110
00:06:02,680 --> 00:06:06,440
Speaker 1: if they were constantly under surveillance. And the idea is

111
00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:08,599
Speaker 1: that once this uh, I guess you could call it

112
00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:12,120
Speaker 1: self discipline was instilled, that prisoners could be released into

113
00:06:12,760 --> 00:06:18,640
Speaker 1: society with the capacity to regulate their own behavior through paranoia.

114
00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:23,440
Speaker 1: Really and yeah and benthem, I mean he's not again,

115
00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:26,520
Speaker 1: he's not trying to be dastardly about this. He's sort

116
00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:28,920
Speaker 1: of thinking, this is the way that we can uh

117
00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:35,000
Speaker 1: manage the prison problem and reform the prisoner via paranoia exactly.

118
00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:37,600
Speaker 1: So originally he thought about this as a prison design,

119
00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:41,039
Speaker 1: but he also thought it was quote applicable to any

120
00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:44,600
Speaker 1: sort of establishment in which persons of any description are

121
00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:47,440
Speaker 1: to be kept under inspection. So we're talking about insane

122
00:06:47,560 --> 00:06:52,919
Speaker 1: asylums for houses. But this is where it gets into society. Factories, schools,

123
00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:57,640
Speaker 1: and hospitals. Yeah, I mean, without without getting into the

124
00:06:57,680 --> 00:06:59,839
Speaker 1: fine details of it, you can see where that would

125
00:06:59,839 --> 00:07:02,080
Speaker 1: that would make sense, and say a hospital where you

126
00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 1: you want constant surveillance more or less of people's conditions,

127
00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:08,520
Speaker 1: or at the very least you want people to feel

128
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,400
Speaker 1: like they're under constant care and surveillance, So that would

129
00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:16,720
Speaker 1: make sense. And obviously with the school situation, but sometimes

130
00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:19,520
Speaker 1: it feels like a school is very similar to a

131
00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:22,480
Speaker 1: prisoner insane asylum, and you have to have that kind

132
00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:24,960
Speaker 1: of order in place to make sure that everyone's doing

133
00:07:25,040 --> 00:07:28,800
Speaker 1: right and and obeying their the laws of the school,

134
00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:32,520
Speaker 1: not cheating on every test, not skipping classes. The problem

135
00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:34,720
Speaker 1: with us and we'll get more into this, uh in

136
00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:39,200
Speaker 1: a bit, is this inherent distrust right? Because Okay, you

137
00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:43,080
Speaker 1: see it extended to prisons, but factories, schools, and hospitals.

138
00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:48,320
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily just taking the form of hey, we're

139
00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:51,160
Speaker 1: just going to surveil and make sure everything is okay.

140
00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:54,600
Speaker 1: There's this idea that something is wrong. Someone somewhere is

141
00:07:54,640 --> 00:07:57,440
Speaker 1: doing something wrong. Right, Yeah, the whole system ends up

142
00:07:57,640 --> 00:08:00,880
Speaker 1: being predicated on guilt, and and it's him to Guildea.

143
00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:03,960
Speaker 1: All right, So what you're you're you're probably asking yourself.

144
00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:06,720
Speaker 1: You're saying, all right, well, where's the panopticon? Point to

145
00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:09,480
Speaker 1: the pen opticon, so I might see a picture of it. Uh,

146
00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:12,119
Speaker 1: And certainly there's some wonderful sketches of it, because I've

147
00:08:12,120 --> 00:08:15,239
Speaker 1: been to put a lot of thought and effort into

148
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:17,760
Speaker 1: the designs. He worked with an architect. He was even

149
00:08:17,800 --> 00:08:21,160
Speaker 1: taught in talks to see his design implemented at one point.

150
00:08:21,160 --> 00:08:24,520
Speaker 1: But the Penopticon was never built in his lifetime. In fact,

151
00:08:24,720 --> 00:08:28,320
Speaker 1: no true panopticon prison was ever built another and no

152
00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:30,600
Speaker 1: one ever took his designs and said all right, I'm

153
00:08:30,600 --> 00:08:33,520
Speaker 1: gonna build this this thing that he designed. Part of

154
00:08:33,520 --> 00:08:37,319
Speaker 1: the problem here is that by the time surveillance technology

155
00:08:37,480 --> 00:08:40,680
Speaker 1: really caught up with his vision, you no longer need

156
00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:43,320
Speaker 1: that specific architecture to make it happen. Like once you

157
00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:48,079
Speaker 1: can actually wire every prison cell conceivably with video and audio.

158
00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:49,679
Speaker 1: If you've reached the point where you can do that,

159
00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:52,960
Speaker 1: you don't need this giant space with all this wasted

160
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:55,480
Speaker 1: empty space between the cells and the tower. You can

161
00:08:55,520 --> 00:08:58,080
Speaker 1: just build a big, you know, farm of cubes and

162
00:08:58,080 --> 00:08:59,880
Speaker 1: then just wire it up right. Yeah, I mean it

163
00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:02,640
Speaker 1: is a huge cost, and politicians were interested, but they

164
00:09:02,640 --> 00:09:05,200
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily going to implement it. Yeah, and we see

165
00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:07,360
Speaker 1: this all the time even today. You know, you're always

166
00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:10,040
Speaker 1: finding stuff showing up in your your feed, your news feed,

167
00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:11,920
Speaker 1: or your Facebook feed where it's like some crazy design

168
00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:14,240
Speaker 1: that's going to innovate the way that we travel or

169
00:09:14,280 --> 00:09:17,520
Speaker 1: do business or live. And for the most part, you're

170
00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:19,760
Speaker 1: not going to see those designs implemented. Those represent the

171
00:09:19,800 --> 00:09:24,360
Speaker 1: extreme that under the best of situations will um you'll

172
00:09:24,400 --> 00:09:27,080
Speaker 1: see aspects of that implemented further down the chain, or

173
00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:32,240
Speaker 1: at least will draw um inspiration and innovation in that direction. Right.

174
00:09:32,600 --> 00:09:34,920
Speaker 1: But so it was never truly built, but it's still

175
00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:40,080
Speaker 1: influenced other prisons. Yes, And probably the best example that

176
00:09:40,120 --> 00:09:42,520
Speaker 1: we can we can find for this is a Cuba's

177
00:09:42,640 --> 00:09:46,680
Speaker 1: UH Presidio MODELO and this was built between n and

178
00:09:46,760 --> 00:09:52,920
Speaker 1: nine and it actually consists of five panopticon buildings, each

179
00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:57,280
Speaker 1: designed to hold prisoners. So these are five buildings UH

180
00:09:57,440 --> 00:10:01,400
Speaker 1: cells lining the inside of the the outer walls, and

181
00:10:01,400 --> 00:10:03,199
Speaker 1: then there's a tower in the center where the guards

182
00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:06,000
Speaker 1: would be able to watch everyone. And uh, you know it,

183
00:10:06,120 --> 00:10:09,160
Speaker 1: it operated, it was functional, and you actually saw some

184
00:10:09,160 --> 00:10:11,560
Speaker 1: some star prisoners there. I Fidel Castro was a prisoner

185
00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:14,320
Speaker 1: there during the rebellion and uh, but of course, then

186
00:10:14,320 --> 00:10:16,679
Speaker 1: after his rise to power, you see the thing just

187
00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:21,960
Speaker 1: stuffed with political prisoners, um, homosexuals, Jeovah's witnesses, counter revolutionaries,

188
00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:26,120
Speaker 1: various enemies of the state, and so the population quickly

189
00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:30,040
Speaker 1: skyrockets to six thousand inmates. Now, of course, that's the

190
00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:32,040
Speaker 1: thing about prisons. If they're built to contain a certain

191
00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:36,720
Speaker 1: number of people. Um, if you overstuffed them, you're gonna

192
00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:40,960
Speaker 1: overload any system, You're gonna overload the wiring of the prison.

193
00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:43,720
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened, you that you have overcrowding

194
00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:46,079
Speaker 1: at least riots in nineteen sixty one, and then it

195
00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:48,640
Speaker 1: was permanently closed by the government in nineteen sixty six.

196
00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:50,800
Speaker 1: Today it's a museum and I think there's a school

197
00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:53,400
Speaker 1: there and also some some offices. But for the most

198
00:10:53,400 --> 00:10:55,000
Speaker 1: part you can you can still find pictures of this

199
00:10:55,080 --> 00:10:57,680
Speaker 1: online and and you can visit it if you're in Cuba,

200
00:10:57,920 --> 00:10:59,920
Speaker 1: and it's a it's really remarkable to look at because

201
00:11:00,120 --> 00:11:05,199
Speaker 1: is it's the idea of the panopticon brought to physical life.

202
00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:09,360
Speaker 1: I wanted to point out a quote by Architects, Designers

203
00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:12,800
Speaker 1: Planners for Social Responsibility that's a d p s R.

204
00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:16,120
Speaker 1: There is an essay on this about prisons and panopticon,

205
00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:20,040
Speaker 1: and the quote is the best intention. Reformist designs have

206
00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:23,640
Speaker 1: believed that more complete control of prisoners through design would

207
00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:27,160
Speaker 1: be used only to further higher goals such as religious

208
00:11:27,200 --> 00:11:31,320
Speaker 1: awakenings and in a reflection, but in fact control is

209
00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:36,040
Speaker 1: an end in itself, and prisons just recreate the powerlessness

210
00:11:36,080 --> 00:11:39,079
Speaker 1: of the member of poor and oppressed groups under even

211
00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:42,720
Speaker 1: stricter rules than they face on the outside. That was

212
00:11:42,760 --> 00:11:45,480
Speaker 1: something interesting to ponder just in general. Not you know,

213
00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:50,160
Speaker 1: the panopticon is really this idealized version of power and control.

214
00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:54,119
Speaker 1: But the prison system as it exists right now, Um,

215
00:11:54,160 --> 00:11:57,720
Speaker 1: there are many people who would say that it doesn't work,

216
00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:00,520
Speaker 1: it doesn't reform. I agree, I agree, And that's that's

217
00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:02,640
Speaker 1: definitely a subject for another episode. We could do a

218
00:12:02,679 --> 00:12:05,520
Speaker 1: whole episode on the state of prisons and and the

219
00:12:05,559 --> 00:12:08,200
Speaker 1: mindset that goes into prison designs. Overall and just let

220
00:12:08,280 --> 00:12:11,120
Speaker 1: the philosophy that goes into an house change over time. Indeed,

221
00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:13,240
Speaker 1: so let's take a quick break, and when we get back,

222
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:16,520
Speaker 1: we are going to look more at this panopticon from

223
00:12:16,559 --> 00:12:27,040
Speaker 1: the perspective of Michelle fel Cole. All right, we're back.

224
00:12:27,679 --> 00:12:31,079
Speaker 1: So yes, Uh, that's the best example of the panopticon

225
00:12:31,679 --> 00:12:35,480
Speaker 1: physically that we have. And you do see uh panopticonic

226
00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:40,400
Speaker 1: elements incorporated into various other prison designs. But for the

227
00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:42,720
Speaker 1: most part, where panopticon continues to have the most power

228
00:12:42,760 --> 00:12:46,160
Speaker 1: today is as metaphor. That's right. And uh, that's why

229
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:48,199
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up that quote by the A. D.

230
00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:53,360
Speaker 1: Spr because Michelle Fockle is a French philosopher who brought

231
00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:58,240
Speaker 1: up the panopticon as this idea of a metaphor of

232
00:12:58,280 --> 00:13:03,120
Speaker 1: our society. That disciplinary systems are prisons in particular, with

233
00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:06,520
Speaker 1: a panopticon is the ideal type there they can be

234
00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:11,280
Speaker 1: social failures. Yeah, fo Call's picture of modern disciplinary society

235
00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:15,440
Speaker 1: breaks into three primary techniques that governmental powers used to

236
00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:22,160
Speaker 1: control the masses. That's hierarchical observation, normalizing, judgment, and examination.

237
00:13:22,800 --> 00:13:25,720
Speaker 1: Now and where this panopticon enters into all that is

238
00:13:25,760 --> 00:13:29,080
Speaker 1: that according to focal power over people can can be

239
00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:32,800
Speaker 1: achieved merely by observing them. So it's like with the panopticon.

240
00:13:33,040 --> 00:13:36,360
Speaker 1: But the deal is that a single inspector would be impossible, right,

241
00:13:36,440 --> 00:13:38,760
Speaker 1: especially when you're talking about governmental power, So you need

242
00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:42,040
Speaker 1: relays of inspectors. You need all of them arrange in

243
00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:44,360
Speaker 1: a hierarchy so that data can pass up and down

244
00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:47,000
Speaker 1: the chain based on importance. And in all of this

245
00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:51,400
Speaker 1: fool focusing on society's modern transition from a quote culture

246
00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:55,280
Speaker 1: of spectacle to make our sero or prison culture. Now

247
00:13:55,360 --> 00:13:56,880
Speaker 1: this gets into the idea that what happened when you

248
00:13:56,880 --> 00:13:59,079
Speaker 1: broke the law in the old days, and like really

249
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:01,480
Speaker 1: broke it, like broke it hard, you would be made

250
00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:04,200
Speaker 1: spectacle of right, And that's what he says. He says

251
00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:06,520
Speaker 1: that this is a quote for him. By the effect

252
00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:09,760
Speaker 1: of backlighting, one can observe from the tower standing out

253
00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:12,680
Speaker 1: precisely against the light, the small captive shadows, and the

254
00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:15,679
Speaker 1: cells of the periphery. They are like so many cages,

255
00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:18,960
Speaker 1: so many small theaters, in which each actor is alone,

256
00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:23,480
Speaker 1: perfectly individualized and constantly visible. So he's saying that this

257
00:14:23,640 --> 00:14:27,160
Speaker 1: stage that the has been reversed, that the audience is

258
00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:31,120
Speaker 1: now in the cells, and the actor, the performer, is

259
00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:34,360
Speaker 1: that that watch person looking over everybody else, and it

260
00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:39,400
Speaker 1: still remains too spectacle. Really, Yeah, a reversal of the

261
00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:42,840
Speaker 1: old days where everyone will be gathered around the guillotine

262
00:14:42,880 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 1: or the heads of his block, or the or the

263
00:14:44,640 --> 00:14:47,640
Speaker 1: news or what have you. So, yeah, and within those

264
00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:51,840
Speaker 1: three points that you had made, the hierarchical distribution of information,

265
00:14:51,960 --> 00:14:54,680
Speaker 1: examination of the information, but also normalizing. This is a

266
00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:56,960
Speaker 1: really important aspect of this, and this is what a

267
00:14:56,960 --> 00:14:58,520
Speaker 1: lot of people run with when they look at our

268
00:14:58,520 --> 00:15:02,320
Speaker 1: society today, look at the different ways that panopticon can

269
00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:06,640
Speaker 1: exist in different formats. So what call has to say

270
00:15:06,680 --> 00:15:09,640
Speaker 1: about normalizing, he says, Hence the major effect of the

271
00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:13,560
Speaker 1: panopticon to induce in the inmate a state of conscious

272
00:15:13,560 --> 00:15:17,560
Speaker 1: and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.

273
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:20,280
Speaker 1: So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in

274
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:24,040
Speaker 1: its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action. Again,

275
00:15:24,080 --> 00:15:27,440
Speaker 1: this is sort of going back to what Bentham was

276
00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:30,720
Speaker 1: really saying, is trying to instill that paranoia that you're

277
00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:33,920
Speaker 1: being watched even if you're not being watched. Yeah, they

278
00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:36,520
Speaker 1: might be watching me. So therefore there's this always feeling,

279
00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:38,400
Speaker 1: there's always this feeling that kind of evens out that

280
00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:41,440
Speaker 1: they are watching me. Yeah, and I'll just skip ahead.

281
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:43,240
Speaker 1: In this quote, he says, in short, that the inmates

282
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:45,640
Speaker 1: should be caught up in a power situation of which

283
00:15:45,720 --> 00:15:49,320
Speaker 1: they are themselves the bearer. So they are the bearer

284
00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:52,520
Speaker 1: of this, and it's this normalization of always being under

285
00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:54,760
Speaker 1: the gaze. And this is what call had a problem

286
00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:57,840
Speaker 1: with because he said that again, it's not just limited

287
00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:01,200
Speaker 1: to prison design. It's a meta for for all types

288
00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:04,880
Speaker 1: of different social organizations and structure, schools, factories, and governments

289
00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:08,320
Speaker 1: now perdue universities. Dino Feluga breaks down the effects of

290
00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:12,040
Speaker 1: pen optic organizational models into into seven overall effects, and

291
00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:13,960
Speaker 1: I think these are pretty interesting. This again is his

292
00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:18,320
Speaker 1: view and his commentary on focals philosophy. Number One, society

293
00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:22,240
Speaker 1: becomes less willing to contest unjust laws, like everyone's under

294
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:25,320
Speaker 1: the gaze of the observer, and so therefore, even if

295
00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,960
Speaker 1: the law seemed to becoming becoming unjust, you're less likely

296
00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:31,080
Speaker 1: to speak out of them, because the gaze is in

297
00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:35,680
Speaker 1: theory on everyone uh. Number two, rehabilitation rather than crueler

298
00:16:35,720 --> 00:16:38,760
Speaker 1: and unusual punishment. So again we talked about that it

299
00:16:38,760 --> 00:16:42,360
Speaker 1: becomes more about the prison system rather than the spectacle. Uh.

300
00:16:42,600 --> 00:16:46,040
Speaker 1: Then there's birth of an information society. You become more

301
00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:49,200
Speaker 1: and more dependent on technology and record keeping. Uh. You

302
00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:52,400
Speaker 1: have a bureaucracy of information in which people become numbers

303
00:16:52,440 --> 00:16:54,320
Speaker 1: because again you're having to keep track of everybody and

304
00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:56,960
Speaker 1: keep track of everything. And this is the panoptic system.

305
00:16:57,160 --> 00:16:59,880
Speaker 1: Efficiency becomes more and more important, even at the cost

306
00:16:59,880 --> 00:17:04,320
Speaker 1: of exploitation or injustice. And finally, a specialization. Members of

307
00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:08,080
Speaker 1: the workforce are organized into increasingly specialized fields so that

308
00:17:08,119 --> 00:17:12,000
Speaker 1: we increasingly rely on other experts to complete tasks that

309
00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:15,320
Speaker 1: had previously been shared or common knowledge, so that you know,

310
00:17:15,320 --> 00:17:20,560
Speaker 1: we're talking to the preparation of meats and other food products, building, construction, transportation, etcetera.

311
00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:24,960
Speaker 1: His idea here is that with the panopticon, it kind

312
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:29,560
Speaker 1: of breeds bureaucracy, and bureau bureaucracy is the uh is

313
00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:33,560
Speaker 1: the brick and mortar of the governmental Uh penopticon to

314
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:38,600
Speaker 1: power panopticon. Uh, that that is society. Yeah, and these

315
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:42,360
Speaker 1: these unwritten rules, UM, and this idea that you're being surveiled,

316
00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:45,040
Speaker 1: this idea that it's all normal. Right, you can start

317
00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:48,639
Speaker 1: to look around and as people have done, particularly at

318
00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:52,440
Speaker 1: the drone situation, and say, okay, so what about the

319
00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:55,280
Speaker 1: pentopticon and modern society. We'll start to think about how

320
00:17:55,280 --> 00:17:59,520
Speaker 1: the Pentagon has scores of communication satellites, many of them

321
00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:02,880
Speaker 1: for link drones, grand roots and imagery analysts. There are

322
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:07,520
Speaker 1: some seven thousand aerial drones compared with fear than fifty

323
00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:11,120
Speaker 1: a decade ago. Now consider that we increasingly have something else,

324
00:18:11,160 --> 00:18:14,240
Speaker 1: spy flies which were equipped with sensors of micro cameras,

325
00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:17,560
Speaker 1: and the fact that since September eleven, uh the hours

326
00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:20,120
Speaker 1: the Air Force devotes to flying missions for intelligence, surveillance

327
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:23,640
Speaker 1: and reconnaissance have gone up three thousand, one hundred percent.

328
00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:27,840
Speaker 1: And everyday the Air Force processes fifteen hundred hours of

329
00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:30,480
Speaker 1: full motion videos and in the fifteen hundred still images,

330
00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:33,920
Speaker 1: a lot of it from the predator drones and reapers.

331
00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:40,000
Speaker 1: So that's one tiny aspect of surveilling power that exists

332
00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:42,399
Speaker 1: in the world today, and of course, in the in

333
00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:44,720
Speaker 1: the past few months, the n s A has been

334
00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:48,240
Speaker 1: all over the headlines for both its domestic surveillance programs

335
00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:52,480
Speaker 1: and its international surveillance programs and uh and that of

336
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:54,240
Speaker 1: course is a really hot button topic as well, with

337
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:57,240
Speaker 1: critics charging of the NSA not only infringes on our privacy,

338
00:18:57,440 --> 00:19:00,960
Speaker 1: but lays the technological groundwork for a true police state.

339
00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:04,239
Speaker 1: And it's really just part of an overall poptic um

340
00:19:04,680 --> 00:19:07,520
Speaker 1: structure on society. Yeah, and the problem there is that

341
00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:13,040
Speaker 1: legislation cannot keep up with technological advances. So you have

342
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:16,440
Speaker 1: these sort of things being rolled out and if they

343
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:19,640
Speaker 1: are challenged, and then takes a while to actually get

344
00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:22,159
Speaker 1: that policy in place or that law in place to

345
00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:26,159
Speaker 1: sort of balance out what sort of surveilling power is

346
00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:31,520
Speaker 1: needed to run a government versus what just becomes overwhelming

347
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:35,880
Speaker 1: and and there's a huge debate about that right now. Um.

348
00:19:36,040 --> 00:19:38,960
Speaker 1: The other thing is that in a way, every time

349
00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:44,800
Speaker 1: you use the Internet, you are willingly submitting yourself to

350
00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:48,399
Speaker 1: this penopticon. I mean you think about the humble cookie, right,

351
00:19:48,600 --> 00:19:52,920
Speaker 1: I mean you're talking about this tiny, little omniscient tendril

352
00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:57,920
Speaker 1: of the Internet that gathering information about you. It's recording

353
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:01,359
Speaker 1: your Internet browsing habits, and it's reporting them to a

354
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,480
Speaker 1: business that you know nothing about. So in a way,

355
00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:09,280
Speaker 1: the corporation becomes the tower you know, the central tower

356
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:13,119
Speaker 1: with the watchman, and we are in those little cubicles

357
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:15,760
Speaker 1: surrounding it with all of our information being passed on.

358
00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:17,680
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to be dramatic about it. It's

359
00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:20,320
Speaker 1: just if you really want to look at this system,

360
00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:24,119
Speaker 1: this panoptic system, and look at it in the digital sphere,

361
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:27,440
Speaker 1: that's an essence how it's working. Yeah. Like I think

362
00:20:27,480 --> 00:20:30,560
Speaker 1: of browsing the Internet at work, which I mean in

363
00:20:30,600 --> 00:20:33,520
Speaker 1: some places of work, that's that's already breaking the rules.

364
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:35,640
Speaker 1: Here we do a lot of Internet research, so it's

365
00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:39,200
Speaker 1: it's part of our job. But but every time we

366
00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:41,840
Speaker 1: we conduct a search and go to a website here

367
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:46,400
Speaker 1: at work, there are like several layers of potential panopticonic

368
00:20:46,560 --> 00:20:49,400
Speaker 1: thinking going on. First of all, all right, the cookies

369
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:52,280
Speaker 1: that are talking to my Facebook and to me into

370
00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:55,480
Speaker 1: this site and this site. You know what to what

371
00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:57,439
Speaker 1: degree am I being watched there? The side I just

372
00:20:57,440 --> 00:20:59,520
Speaker 1: went to. All right, all these different corporations just found

373
00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:02,400
Speaker 1: out about it. Uh, next time using a work machine

374
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:05,399
Speaker 1: on a work Internet connection. I know that they have

375
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:07,919
Speaker 1: certain systems in place. I don't know the details of

376
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:11,560
Speaker 1: them or how they work, but I know that they

377
00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:16,080
Speaker 1: can slash our, you know, observing what I'm doing on

378
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:20,080
Speaker 1: my machine and uh and so it eventually becomes this

379
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:23,000
Speaker 1: situation of you you feel like you're observed all the time,

380
00:21:23,560 --> 00:21:27,199
Speaker 1: and what are you comfortable being observed doing? You know,

381
00:21:27,240 --> 00:21:29,159
Speaker 1: you end up rationalizing like, all right, I'm going to

382
00:21:29,240 --> 00:21:32,439
Speaker 1: this website. I'm clearly going here for research. I have

383
00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:35,800
Speaker 1: a good excuse when the inspector leaves the tower and

384
00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 1: comes to get me, like like, that's the kind of

385
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:40,480
Speaker 1: weird thinking you're you're left in because you assume you're

386
00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:44,480
Speaker 1: being watched. Now, to add to this um are other

387
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:49,240
Speaker 1: technological chats, advancements, however you want to swing it. I'm

388
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:53,240
Speaker 1: thinking about Google Glass because here some people would say, okay,

389
00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:56,679
Speaker 1: here's this thing that is recording not only audio, but

390
00:21:56,920 --> 00:22:00,879
Speaker 1: video of everything that's going around them. So now we

391
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:05,720
Speaker 1: have this idea of the panopticon as us gathering information

392
00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:08,760
Speaker 1: about one another. And this does sound a little bit paranoid,

393
00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:11,760
Speaker 1: but I think that the crux of this argument is

394
00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:16,520
Speaker 1: if and when everyone is wearing Google Glass, then it

395
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 1: becomes normalizing behavior to surveil people even though you're not.

396
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: You wouldn't call it surveiling. You know, your co workers

397
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:27,640
Speaker 1: or your friends, but you are gathering data about them,

398
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: and essentially there is a third party that is using

399
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:34,159
Speaker 1: that data in some way and linking it up with

400
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: other data. And we've talked about facial recognition systems, or

401
00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:40,959
Speaker 1: it's just a different layers that can be put together

402
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:44,439
Speaker 1: to put to create really a profile of a person

403
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:47,720
Speaker 1: and try to predict their behavior and what they're doing

404
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:51,880
Speaker 1: and buying and engaging in. Yeah, it's I mean, it's

405
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:53,920
Speaker 1: already crazy. Where to the point where you put a

406
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 1: photo up on Facebook, Like, for instance, I'll put a

407
00:22:56,600 --> 00:22:59,760
Speaker 1: photo up of me and my wife and our child,

408
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 1: and the Facebook will say, hey, look at the face

409
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 1: of your wife. Do you want to identify this? We

410
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:08,280
Speaker 1: know who this is. Facebook knows who it is. And

411
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: then they pointed that the face of of our child,

412
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 1: and and Facebook says, who is this? Tell us who

413
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: this is? Tag them now? And I say, you don't.

414
00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 1: You don't have him yet, not wait, And I'm sure

415
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: he'll be on there, but for now, he's he's outside

416
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: of your system, he's outside of your panopticon, right. Well,

417
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,400
Speaker 1: in in some ways he's outside of society, right because

418
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 1: if this is what we increasingly continue to do we

419
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: indoctrinating another one another via our virtual internet presence. Then

420
00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: if you're not in the yet, then you're operating outside

421
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:45,119
Speaker 1: of society. Yeah. We've already looked at some commentary before

422
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:49,679
Speaker 1: about how the newer generations the idea of private lives

423
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:53,680
Speaker 1: has to varying degrees eroded. Uh, there's just more. They're

424
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: more comfortable by and large with the idea of just

425
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: living your life out there on the Internet where anyone

426
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: can see it. And so I can imagine a day

427
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 1: when it becomes the norm that you're also contributing to this, uh,

428
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 1: this panoficon structure through the information it's streaming through your

429
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 1: your glasses or whatever kind of a personal computing device

430
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: you're you're wearing, and then adding to the surveillance information

431
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:21,160
Speaker 1: on the society you live in. Yeah, because I guess

432
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: the flip side on this is that, um, the more

433
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: data that's being put out there, the more transparency could occur. Right,

434
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: So I think the positive spin on this would be Okay,

435
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 1: So we're we are collecting an immense amount of data

436
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: about one another in society, but as a result, perhaps

437
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:42,400
Speaker 1: we would have less corruption, we would have less ne'er

438
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:45,639
Speaker 1: do well is Um, well, but Fuco would never say that. No, No,

439
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:47,879
Speaker 1: I would never say that that is the that's what

440
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:49,640
Speaker 1: the answer at the end of I know, I'm playing

441
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 1: Devil's advocate and saying it's someone on the other side

442
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:54,439
Speaker 1: of this argument could say, Hey, there's there's a worth

443
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 1: in having this amount of data out there, and that

444
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 1: there's no way that everyone, all the corporations in the world,

445
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: all pulled together, could truly analyze the amount of data

446
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: that comes out of it. That's one argument. Yeah, it

447
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: all comes back to what you were saying earlier about

448
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: the idea that the Panopticon is the universe and the

449
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: inspector in the tower, in the Inspector's lodge is God.

450
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: What kind of God do you do you end up believing?

451
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:24,880
Speaker 1: And do you believe in a benevolent God who wants

452
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on us and make sure that

453
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: we're safe in our comfy selves. Is it just a

454
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 1: complete benign god that is just sort of watching as

455
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 1: we either live comfortably or are horribly beaten in ourselves,

456
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: or is it an oppressive God who is there to

457
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 1: make sure that we stay in this grim, dirty cell

458
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: and uh and our only moved according to his her

459
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: its whims. So that's the problem, um, is that there's

460
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: no one god in the situation. Right. Depending on where

461
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 1: you live and that the kind of culture you live

462
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: in and the politics surrounding it, you could have a

463
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 1: benevolent god or you could have a vengeful god. All right,

464
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:05,439
Speaker 1: there you go, the Panopticon in a nutshell. Um. Before

465
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,760
Speaker 1: we close out here, I'm gonna call over the mail

466
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:11,439
Speaker 1: bot and I'm gonna do a quick listener mail. All right,

467
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Peter cron And uh,

468
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: who's a long time listener uh and as always hitting

469
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: us up with some cool links on our Facebook page

470
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: and writing us with some cool thoughts. And here's just

471
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: some some wonderful musings that he presented to us. He says, Hey,

472
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: there got something I was thinking about today that maybe

473
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 1: either of you to have thought about. I'm wondering about consciousness.

474
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 1: I was reading an article by Carl Zimmer which had

475
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: me thinking about what it would be like if our

476
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: massively connected world developed a real, next level consciousness that

477
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: it's individual components were mostly unaware of. Would this super

478
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: mind start probing itself like we do with our own brains,

479
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 1: Would it at first be as clumsy as our own

480
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 1: experiments before we understood our own biology a bit better.

481
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that a probe might consist of something like

482
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: these microscopic fast financial dealings on Wall Street that we've

483
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: assumed we're traders using super conputers to manipulate the mark

484
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: could Some have said they could be experiments, but by

485
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: who How else might our new mind test its own boundaries.

486
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,719
Speaker 1: It may just realize it's consciouness when other similar entities

487
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 1: arise from the ether of the Internet, or communicate somehow,

488
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,119
Speaker 1: or it makes corss into taking to space exploration, drive

489
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: competition via heightened cybercrime, and espionage between countries based on

490
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: historical knowledge of how to fund these expensive ventures. I'm

491
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 1: sure there must be people already doing actual testing to

492
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: see if this thing is alive. Man, that just makes

493
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: me think of the whole conscious problem, like consciousness problem

494
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: that we've talked about, and how much more difficult that

495
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: would become. I think, right, if you're adding another layer

496
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: on a macro layer on top of our existing conundrum

497
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: of consciousness. Um, but maybe that's the consciousness that would

498
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: figure out our consciousness for us hopefully. Yeah, I mean,

499
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: you create this god you know, in a way it

500
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: ties in nicely with the idea of the panopticon. If

501
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 1: we it through something like this, if we were able

502
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: to either create or accidentally create or give birth to

503
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 1: a super consciousness that ends up more or less occupying

504
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: that center tower in the panopticon. Uh, you know, what

505
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 1: would the effects be and what would the nature of

506
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: that entity be? And how might it manipulate the prison

507
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 1: to maintain control or to maximize efficiency? And could it

508
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 1: be out at holographic eye in the sky for us

509
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: all just to look up in case upon Well, what

510
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: is that a reference to? I just think that it

511
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: should be if there's going to be the sort of

512
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,679
Speaker 1: superconsciousness that it should be able to have these a

513
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: symbol of itself to be mount well, particularly if it's

514
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 1: going to truly occupy the place of a panopticon. Well,

515
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: that's like the eye of saurin right, and the Lord

516
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 1: of the Rings that floats over the the tower and

517
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: more door that's right now, it's really the eye of Providence. Yeah. Really,

518
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: there's another excellent example of panopticon right there. All right, So, hey,

519
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: you want to reach out to us, you want to

520
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: talk to us about the panopticon. We would love to

521
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: hear from you. I mean specifically, what are your thoughts

522
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: on the idea that we're living in a panopticon? Now,

523
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: do you feel like this? Do you feel this sort

524
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: of fear and paranoia it you? You may be observed

525
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 1: at all times? And how does that affect your behavior?

526
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: How does that affect your happiness level? Let us know

527
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. You can find us

528
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: at all the usual places, specially stuffed able your mind

529
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: dot com. That's the mothership, that's where all the podcast

530
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,479
Speaker 1: episodes are, the blog post, the videos, etcetera. You can

531
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: also find us on Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter, Google Plus, remind

532
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: Stuff show on YouTube. And hey, if any of you

533
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: are in Cuba or ben to Cuba and have actually

534
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: visited the prison we were talking about earlier, let us

535
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: know what that was like. I've seen the photos and

536
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: they're amazing, but nothing beats a personal visit to something

537
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: like that. And if you should be so bold as

538
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: to craft an email that may or may not be

539
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: read by others besides Robert myself, you can do so

540
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: by sending it to blow the mind at discovery dot

541
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

542
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: Does it, how stuff works, dot com