New Academic Research Argues for a Holistic Life-Cycle Approach
A ground breaking new study by the Synthetic Reality Institute has determined that the city of Berkeley should displace Pyongyang as the world’s most surveilled space. The coveted Surveilled Space Award (SSA) goes to municipalities that excel in directing their citizenry towards conformist behavior. The report’s authors argue that Berkeley has long excelled in SSA attributes, but methodological limitations have held the city back from being recognized. The report concludes, “when one take a wholistic life-cycle approach its clear that Berkeley is world-class.”
The authors argue that historical precedence has caused the award committee to rely on a set of outdated indicators to evaluate SSA attributes. For example, scoring is heavily weighted toward “hard indicators” such a signs that tell people what to do. While Berkeley is no slouch when it come to signage the North Korean capitol clearly excels in this category.
“But when we dug a little deeper we uncovered bias in historic measures. For example, people always assumed the Pyongyang did security cameras better than Berkeley. This assumption came about because the cameras, like in London, are prominent in public spaces.” The authors, using an innovative extrapolation technique to analyze video footage posted to Burgled Nextdoor, were able to calculate a Camera Concentration Index or CCI that was far greater in Berkeley. “Look when you do a summation of all the Nest Dorbells and Tesla security cameras, its clear the probability of being recorded in public is 8.3 times greater in Berkeley.”
However, what really put Berkeley over the top were the “soft” indicators that have yet to make their way into the SSA award metrics. “Look when you combine the Internet with the Nanny-state you are in another dimension.” The study notes, “the absence of Internet alone puts Pyongyang at an incredible disadvantage.” They cite the example of Berkeley Notify, an application designed to drive politically correct consumer behavior. “Look with Berkeley Notify, you have a population-based confirmation tool its extremely powerful.” The authors stipulate that Pyongyang just can’t compete given its citizens lack of Internet access.
Look when you combine the Internet with the Nanny-state you are in another dimension
SRI Authors
In addition, the study’s lead analyst notes. “there are techniques which the North Koreans simply can’t imagine. Consider the food ban in grocery checkout isles. Due to austerity measures and sanctions they don’t have such items to offer in the first place, so there is nothing to ban. Ditto for straws and disposable cups.”
In summary, the authors write, “when you combine all the hard and soft SSA elements into a life-cycle approach, you can see why we argue Berkeley has been under appreciated for all these years.”