> * you could not opt out of Stasi, but you can opt not to give up your data voluntarily (at the cost of convenience)

I.e. you can opt to not read or write anything online, and communicate with nobody, live underground, and never get ill? I'm not quite seeing it.

> Stasi was centralized whereas "innumerable commercial entities" are, by definition, not

Commercial entities themselves are often very centralized (there is a clear chain of ownership and command) and can be themselves be embedded in and/or used by more centralized organs. So one might as well say the Stasi wasn't centralized because it consisted of innumerable spooks and informants. Think of it as "The Stasi Cloud" or something, if that helps. Nothing is truly centralized, if you split hairs enough.

> snitches tend to report "bad" things only, information you volunteer about yourself tends to be "good" things only

We're not talking about information that is volunteered when openly asked though. And besides, that's besides the point. It is still a trampling on basic human rights on pretty much a global scale, by all sorts of nations and private entities.

When I cannot communicate with anyone by phone, email, or a social website they can be bothered to use, then I do not have the right to have private friendships much less any means to organize politically to step on any powerful toes. I can't be a free human being without other free human beings. So do I have that right, or not?

Sure, we got engineered into falling into trap voluntarily. It's no real consolation, other than that we could end it, if weren't so addicted to having new toys, preferably yesterday. But we are, and we don't, and if we won't ever, then it's really just a matter of the political climate changing drastically and widely once more, and then it may not change again for a long, horrible time span.

Because another important difference between the Stasi and this is that there is no outside. We're not just talking about today, at least I'm not, we know what is possible and we see the world changing quickly.

> should be addressed on their specific terms

You only list things that are, in your opinion, different. What about what the knowledge that anything you (digitally) say to anyone might be recorded practically forever does in regards to self-censorship, how might it ultimately even stump thought?

And what about the "decentralization of responsibility"? This can occur within a monolithic bureaucracy, but how much more so in a dog eat dog just doing my job world. And it's a very big factor in such things.

You don't need strict, obvious centralization when you have enough people following along voluntarily, or making up their own little rationalizations why they do any of the 1000 voluntary things that ultimately all serve you more than them. You need enough people, and enough technology to multiply their power, and the rest just needs to be passive and/or divided.

You might convince me that there are several smaller and bigger Stasis, some with just a little power, others with more, and that they overlap and differ in various ways. Just like the actual people the actual Stasi consisted of did. But other than that, I disagree on all points.

The desire of people to be free from surveillance by practically unaccountable people who pull shit like wars of aggression, abductions, assassinations, can never be "dangerous" enough. Yes, crying wolf is also not productive, but I honestly think we're beyond that. There's something in the pen, and the only way to see how friendly or dangerous it is, is to call it out. If we're too scared to even do that, to enforce human rights no matter who goes there, it just might be a wolf.

I mean, how "should" things be addressed? So far what little activism and education there was, has had very little results. It's not like the trend is changing, or even slowing down. So okay, being too "dramatic" or whatever is not okay, so what is okay? How big do you think the time window is?