I actually did not mean that specifically about representative democracy, but all democracy. I think the democratic ideal is essentially rule by the majority, which someone at odds with would call "tyranny". Representative democracy, foundational laws, independentish courts, all move away from the democratic ideal in their own ways. Each mechanism has its own positive aspects and poor failure modes, like democracy itself. When people say "democratic", they're usually assuming some of these also.
With respect to mass surveillance, I don't think representative (vs not) currently has much bearing - I believe that most people are presently not opposed to it, whether by (not understanding the technicals, propaganda, not affecting them, feeling powerless to do anything about it).
The prominence of electronic surveillance is quite new (two generations), so widely-held hard-learned moderating laws (eg "Natural Rights") easily remain unapplied.
Courts themselves are part of the government doing the surveillance. They inherently consider themselves as having jurisdiction over everything (even though historically so much as been non-legible), so they're predisposed to thinking that gathering additional information cannot hurt. So they're no help either.
Which is why I think if mass surveillance is going to be curtailed within the next several generations (eg before societal collapse where expensive lessons get internalized as "sins"), it has to be through technical means. Poor technology design and adoption have gotten us to this point by making it so everybody is doing everything in the clear (TLS encrypting the link to your chosen surveillance broker is not security!). So perhaps with a modicum of people caring about their own privacy, combined with the (seemingly) natural swing of the (de)centralization pendulum, responsibly designed privacy preserving systems can be adopted instead.
With respect to mass surveillance, I don't think representative (vs not) currently has much bearing - I believe that most people are presently not opposed to it, whether by (not understanding the technicals, propaganda, not affecting them, feeling powerless to do anything about it).
The prominence of electronic surveillance is quite new (two generations), so widely-held hard-learned moderating laws (eg "Natural Rights") easily remain unapplied.
Courts themselves are part of the government doing the surveillance. They inherently consider themselves as having jurisdiction over everything (even though historically so much as been non-legible), so they're predisposed to thinking that gathering additional information cannot hurt. So they're no help either.
Which is why I think if mass surveillance is going to be curtailed within the next several generations (eg before societal collapse where expensive lessons get internalized as "sins"), it has to be through technical means. Poor technology design and adoption have gotten us to this point by making it so everybody is doing everything in the clear (TLS encrypting the link to your chosen surveillance broker is not security!). So perhaps with a modicum of people caring about their own privacy, combined with the (seemingly) natural swing of the (de)centralization pendulum, responsibly designed privacy preserving systems can be adopted instead.