Episode #187 - How much freedom would you trade for security? (Foucault, Hobbes, Mill, Agamben)
How much freedom would you trade for security?
This episode builds on the idea of a digital panopticon by exploring how power operates beyond laws and governments. Foucault argued that institutions like schools and factories discipline people not through force but by structuring behavior. This leads to a deeper question: how is behavior shaped today? The episode considers Stuart Armstrong’s counterintuitive claim that a surveillance state might reduce crime and hypocrisy, eliminate passwords, and improve research—but at what cost? The philosophical debate around freedom vs. security takes center stage, comparing thinkers like Hobbes, Mill, and Judith Jarvis Thomson to show how privacy is more than secrecy—it’s the space that makes individuality and dissent possible. Giorgio Agamben’s idea of the “state of exception” helps frame COVID-era privacy trade-offs as precedents for future control. The episode ends with Deleuze’s concept of the “control society,” where institutions blur together, roles are fluid, and people become “dividuals”—data fragments monitored and influenced by algorithms. It’s a call to see our digital choices—like accepting cookies—as small but real votes in the ongoing tension between freedom and security.
Further Reading:
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (2019)
The Black Box Society by Frank Pasquale (2015)
Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life by David Lyon (2001)
See the full transcript here.
Thank you to everyone who makes this podcast a possibility in the future.
I could never do this without your support! :)
