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Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

theguardian.com

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Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#271

Post by homonculus1 »

crazypyro wrote: post #214
homonculus1 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The framing of this comparison is fraught due to unequal bucketing. Most other countries are the size of US states or even cities, so they can boast individually low numbers while in the US everything gets bundled together. The US should instead be compared to something like all of Europe or all of Western Europe.

Perhaps, a comparison versus the rest of the G7? https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-...

I suppose I'm conflating school shootings with mass shootings which is what most people worry about, a la Columbine or Parkland. The figures in your link are mostly gang violence, which is a completely separate although valid issue.

We do absolutely have higher rates of targeted gang violence than other countries, which after controlling for factors like density and poverty is highly correlated to young urban male demographics that aren't as prevalent in other developed nations. There is no single policy that can solve the numerous social and systemic failures that generate this problem, but due to the nature of these vendettas they would assuredly be carried out with knives and shanks in the absence of guns.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#272

Post by hanniabu »

systemtest wrote: post #46
mattlondon wrote: post #4

Unpopular opinion: make private gun ownership illegal instead of forcing kids to be monitored to make sure they're not carrying

Or just fix the underlaying issue. Switzerland has 2 million guns on 8 million citizens. Yet no school shootings. Why don't they have school shootings and can we apply the Swiss system to the United States?

Yes, but if you actually address the root cause then you can't use shootings as an excuse for mass surveillance.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#273

Post by hcurtiss »

shadowgovt wrote: post #212
hcurtiss wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I'm not sure the answer would be relevant. As an analogy, just because you haven't used your first aid kit doesn't mean you won't one day need it. To the contrary, we have many examples of countries that left the first aid kit behind only to realize they desperately needed it.

But we're not talking about first aid kits, we're talking about guns. And I think the burden of proof is on those who claim freedom of private firearm ownership works as an anti-tyranny deterrant to play around in the historical fiction realm of how Venezuela, Iraq, Hong Kong, et. al would have turned out differently with a more armed populace (remembering to factor in the possible scenario "Basically the same as it…

I don't necessarily disagree, but neither would I call it "historical fiction." Armed populaces have fought back against their governments repeatedly throughout history. In any event, I'm one of the guys who would rather go down shooting than in a gas chamber. And, yes, that kind of liberty comes at a price.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#274

Post by redslazer »

ghostpepper wrote: post #264
balabaster wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side of the coin is that kids learn from a very early age what it takes to slip past the surveillance net. The smart ones watch everyone around them get caught for infractions. Taking note. Quietly gathering data. Towing the line, purposely being caught for the occasional minor infraction so as not to appear too good to be true. Until one day, they disappear from prison in the middle of a storm and take the…

What movie is it? I would watch it.

Shawshank Redemption

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#275

Post by hanniabu »

tux1968 wrote: post #160
xwdv wrote: post #17

The point of clear backpacks isn’t to make sure they aren’t carrying guns, it’s to make sure they aren’t carrying drugs or other illicit material, which is a bigger problem and harder to control.

This can't be right. It's too easy to put drugs inside a book or pencil case. For that matter it's mostly the same problem for a weapon too.

Well now that everything is done on laptops I'm sure they'll also ban you from bringing in anything besides your laptop. No pens, cases, books, etc.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#276

Post by nabnob »

umvi wrote: post #99
GuiA wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still 6 times more guns per person in the US than in Switzerland. Looking at the numbers also shows that Switzerland is far from being an outlier in any way, so I'm not sure why the Swiss system is more interesting than the Austrian system or Swedish system in that regard. There are just way too many guns in the US (i.e. "it's just way too easy to get a gun in the US"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimat…

The vast majority of those guns are sitting around harmlessly in gun collector's lockers. US has a mental illness problem. At some point, a societal sickness entered the country. A sickness of nihilism and hopelessness. A sickness where (mostly men) feel lonely and unloved and powerless to change their futures. A sickness where hatred for peers is harbored for years until it festers and explodes out in a violent way.…

I don't think it's mental illness alone, since these shootings are almost entirely perpretrated by men. Plenty of women are mentally ill, isolated or lonely, feel powerless, and yet they're not committing mass shootings.

Almost all of the mass shootings were committed by men with a history of domestic abuse and violence. I think the real root cause is entitlement and not seeing other people as humans.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#278

Post by foldr »

philwelch wrote: post #179
foldr wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could probably kill more people with knives So why are you worried about gun bans? You can just use a knife instead. I think you must know, really, that guns are more dangerous and effective than knives. That's why you want the right to own one. It's also why the US has frequent mass shootings in schools, whereas there are no instances of mass stabbings in UK schools. Just look at the recent terrorist incident…

> Just look at the recent terrorist incident in London. The guy killed two people with a knife before being restrained by unarmed members of the public. The people restraining him were armed with a fire extinguisher and a narwhal tusk, and he was ultimately subdued by the police shooting him with guns. Also, since banning guns didn’t actually seem to fix anything, they’re now working on banning knives. So you can’t j…

>The people restraining him were armed with a fire extinguisher and a narwhal tusk

I.e., whatever objects happened to be at hand. I don't think you'd have much luck using a fire extinguisher against someone with an assault rifle.

>Also, since banning guns didn’t actually seem to fix anything

Hmm? There have been no mass killings in schools since the handgun ban. What was anyone expecting it to fix that it hasn't fixed?

Bear in mind that very few British people owned handguns even before the ban (roughly 0.1% of the population), and none of them would have been carrying their guns around while going about their day to day business. One would not expect the ban to have had any great effect on anything - beyond eliminating the specific problem it was intended to address.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#279

Post by foldr »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #199
foldr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They've tried banning everything in England and criminals will still kill people with just about anything anything. First it's the guns, then knives, then machetes. If these alternatives are just as effective as guns, why do you feel that you need a gun? Of course, you know that guns are more effective at killing people - especially large numbers of people. That's why we in the UK have not had a mass killing in a sc…

> why do you feel that you need a gun? A. In a free society, I am not required to justify my choices. I don’t have to explain my “feelings” about anything. B. “Need”, there is that word again. In what ways are enumerated rights dependent on needs? If something better than a gun existed for personal defense, I’d want that, I don’t have to explain my “need” about anything. You seem like you are confusing rights with gr…

I don't care particularly about gun rights in the US as I'm not American and no longer live in the US. My question was simply why someone who believed that knives were as effective as guns would feel that they needed a gun to defend themselves. I think you are getting the wrong end of the stick.

Re: Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance

#280

Post by hindsightbias »

rahuldottech wrote: post #20

THIS IS NOT OKAY. We can't have children being used to constant surveillance and accepting this as a part of life. It sets them up for so many problems in the future, where they won't understand the serious implications of constant tracking and surveillance. And sure, nothing too bad comes out of this stuff right now in most of the world, but have you seen China? The minute a government decides to do so, all that dat…

The horse has left that barn. They're under surveillance from the moment they enter the maternity ward. The population of HN'ers who let a babysitter take care of their kids w/o a webcam is probably way below the general population.

Your kids will raise theirs under the watch of Alexa AI-Webcam and Apple Watch Child Protection kit.

And one day they'll sit on courts and find the Fourth Amendment quaint.

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