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Many dictatorships have relied on people turning in their neighbors for being opponents of the regime. I think that people turning in their neighbors based on things they&#x27;ve seen them do&#x2F;say is a pretty good approximation of surveillance. I would go so far as to argue that many a dictatorship would have been far less scary (and effective) if people weren&#x27;t worried that their neighbors would turn them in.<p>Given as my family lived and suffered from this kind of dictatorship throughout three consecutive generations, I hope I can explain why I don&#x27;t think that this is surveillance.<p>You see, when you write to NKVD to say that your neighbor said a joke about Stalin, they don&#x27;t actually check if what you&#x27;ve said is true. They don&#x27;t honestly care. The accuracy of your report is completely irrelevant to the system, and even further — if these reports were actually checked, the system wouldn&#x27;t be as effective, because this would mean that the system actually had rules.<p>Instead, this report system was based on complete paranoia and random violence. Random violence, not based on any actual rules, but only pretending to be, is much more effective in putting people in a state of learned helplessness and upholding the regime — while (in the example of 30s Soviet Union) killing almost the whole elite several times over.<p>This has nothing to do with surveillance.