That's fantastic stuff. I feel we're in some kind of 'inversion of control' situation here, from being the (relatively inept) masters of our tech we are slowly turned into peripherals.

Textual change suggestion:

"Earlier European censuses had helpfully laid out the details necessary to systematically and efficiently round up undesirables on a scale yet unseen or imagined."

=>

"Earlier European censuses had helpfully laid out the details necessary to systematically and efficiently round up those that were labeled undesirables on a scale yet unseen or imagined."

Also, I think malicious compliance needs to be addressed somehow, the tech industry has been weaponizing this.

Ok, will look at it when I wake up a bit more. The labeling/consequences of happened after the fact however, so might need additional clarification.

The problem is that it marks them as undesirable, which they were in fact not. At least, that's how my non-English native brain interprets it.

Ok, didn't mean they were literally unacceptable, but they were externally perceived as so. But I can see how it could be read that way. Would "scare quotes" be enough to avoid that?

Edit: I edited it. Writing is hard. ;-)

You might like the Zulip group if you've read that far. Better to discuss rewrites there than at HN.

Re: malicious compliance

There's a mention linked from a Proton post in the Recent history page, yet could definitely use its own section. Thanks for your help.

Yes, that's one way to fix it. Otherwise it looks like it is you saying this.