Jeremy Bentham believed he was designing a humane, rational utopia. History remembers him as the unwitting godfather of the modern surveillance state. This episode examines the eccentric 18th century philosopher behind utilitarianism and his philosophic calculus of pleasure and pain, then follows him to a 1785 trip to Krichev in the Russian Empire, where his brother Samuel was arranging factory workbenches so a single manager could observe every worker. Sociologist Simone Browne's observation that Bentham drafted his early proposals while traveling on a ship carrying enslaved people adds a haunting context to the design's origins.

The discussion walks through the architecture of the 1791 Panopticon, a circular building with backlit cells and a central tower hidden by blinds, so inmates must assume they are always watched and become their ow ...