The Lessons of Gyges
We want our government transparent, our public spaces safe, and our personal lives private. How's that working out?
Book II of Plato's Republic tells the story of the “Ring of Gyges”. Gyges is a shepherd and subject of the king of Lydia. One day an earthquake reveals a chasm in a mountainside where his flock grazed. Gyges enters the chasm and discovers a tomb with a large corpse wearing a golden ring, which he takes for himself. He soon discovers that by adjusting the ring he gains the power of invisibility. Gyges uses this power to seduce the queen and, with her help, murder the king. He becomes king of Lydia.
Plato uses this story to argue that people are moral not because they are inherently just, but because they fear the repercussions of being caught. Plato is a bit of a cynic, but he believes that invisibility reveals true moral character because it removes accountability. And our true moral character is not great. He writes:
Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other. No man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.
Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust.
For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
H.G. Wells picked up the idea in The Invisible Man in 1897. He tells the story of Griffin, a scientist who discovers a way to become invisible but struggles with the consequences. Harry Potter reveals himself a hero by using his invisibility cloak to evade enemies, save friends, and battle dark forces (and to goof off. He’s a teenager). In The Lord of the Rings, the One Ring grants the wearer invisibility, an extended lifespan, domination over other ring-bearers. It guarantees corruption. Tolkien’s Gandalf is a powerful and wise wizard who rejects the ring because he understands its immense corrupting power.
In modern times, shell companies, anonymous social media accounts, the dark web, and cryptocurrencies promise invisibility as a way to reduce accountability. These technologies have not contributed to human flourishing, even if they can be useful to those resisting totalitarian governments.
If invisibility reduces accountability, does surveillance increase it? It can. Most people accept video cameras in public spaces if they increase safety and security. Video surveillance has exploded because many studies suggest that deploying them can cut crime in half (although other studies find little effect). Home security cameras are now a $3 billion market that is growing at more than 20 percent annually.
Does heightened visibility actually cut crime? It probably helps if everyone knows that they are being watched. CCTV signs are everywhere in cities like London. But my city of Oakland, California diverted $7 million of federal funds designed to safeguard our port and used it to create a citywide surveillance system. Most people have no idea that the half-round glass balls mounted on our downtown buildings are spy cameras. This surely reduces their effectiveness.
Visibility is not always an improvement. It doesn’t always work. Following a series of prominent cases of police abuse and murder, the US began to heavily favor body-worn-cameras (BWC) on state and local police. As of 2020, all U.S. police departments serving at least one million residents reported using BWC and 79 percent of police officers nationwide reported working in departments with BWC programs. Federal agents, including ICE border patrol agents, now wear them. These cameras appeal to civilians and may increase trust in police, but there is scant evidence that they reduce crime or police misconduct.
Should we require that every registered company identify the individuals or public corporations behind their funding? Should we authenticate every social media account and require real names to improve civility and reduce trolls and threats? Should all crypto be traceable to individual wallets (as it often is now)? There are tradeoffs, but on balance, I’d say yes, because public visibility increases trust. We should enjoy a right to privacy in our homes and in private conversations. But public behavior, including driving, chartering a company, and posting online should be fully visible, at least as a default condition.
In 1913 future Supreme Court heavyweight Louis Brandeis wrote an article in Harpers that began:
“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”
Today we refer to as “Sunshine Laws” a variety of freedom of information acts, open meeting laws, and public records acts designed to open government meetings, records, and documents to the public. The premise of these laws is that invisibility promotes abuse and granting public access to government processes promotes accountability. Plato would cheer.
On the other hand, every state has secrets. The military knows that invisibility confers obvious battlefield advantages. As a machinist, I used to make blades for nuclear submarine turbines that had to be manufactured to ridiculously tight tolerances so that the enormous two-story high turbines would run quietly enough to be undetectable. We design stealth fighters and bombers to evade radar and infrared. The purpose of camouflage is to reduce visibility in battle.
What about campaign contributions? We tend to subject them to Sunshine Laws and make donors disclose their donations. I have suggested elsewhere however, that keeping campaign contributions secret the way we do votes might have advantages.
There are lessons from Gyges that Plato did not consider. If people can monitor you without you knowing it because they are invisible, social trust is very difficult. If there might be a Gyges in the room, you have little reason to trust anything or anyone.
Protecting individual liberty has always meant denying authorities Gyges-like invisibility. Technology makes this much more urgent. AI, facial recognition, and surveillance drones give governments have the ring of Gyges at unimagined scale. Ask any Uighur how that’s working out. Then ask what, specifically, keeps it from happening here.
The paradox, of course, is that not all visibility needs to be surveillance. Most of us behave better when we are visible. I am pretty sure that I would misuse Gyges’ ring. I don’t want to live my life on camera, but I acknowledge that in my weaker moments, imagining that someone is recording what I am about to say works better for me than counting to ten.