41–50 of 237 posts
American HN readers: Is everything alright? It seems a new kind of on-the-edge over there. Does it truly feel unsafe to the extent that people resort to violent and intrusive systems like these?
American HN readers: Is everything alright? It seems a new kind of on-the-edge over there. Does it truly feel unsafe to the extent that people resort to violent and intrusive systems like these?
However, it seems most people believe crime, particularly violent crime, has been getting worse over the same period: https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/FT_16... from this study: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/16/voters-perc...
Perhaps this is a mere symptom of some other problem. In Canada I dont personally recall witnessing crime in my adult life. If I saw someone doing something criminal today I would just you know... call the cops. Perhaps in the USA the lived experience is somewhat different? Maybe more crime? Maybe the police dont show up?
"The whole idea behind Protect is that you could convince people to pay for the product once you’ve gotten them to the highest point of anxiety you can possibly get them to," one former employee said, referring to Citizen's subscription service. "Citizen can’t make money unless it makes its users believe there are constant, urgent threats around them at all times,"
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Citizen incentivizes both its employees and the public to create incidents because they are the core currency of the app and what drives user engagement, user retention, and a sense of reliance on the app itself.
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"It’s basically an anxiety sweatshop," a Citizen source said. "On days when things are 'slow,' they relax the standards around incidents because a dip in incident count is really bad," they added. The company sends congratulatory emails announcing which analysts reported the highest number of incidents, another source added.
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A former employee added, "They don’t much care about the accuracy or the usefulness of the information they put out, they just want to push as many notifications to create that feeling of vulnerability that leads people to the subscription services."
In many communities it’s clear that the DAs won’t prosecute criminals, so vigilantism is inevitable. People demand justice, in other words punishment, for criminals, and they will obtain it if the system fails. We’re heading toward the Albanian model and that’s actually OK. If we all drop our little safe happy delusions we’ll see it’s necessary to get your own justice.
This attitude is fundamentally incompatible with American (really, all Western) civic values. It goes against what our entire system of law is built on.
Our “entire system of law” exists precisely to channel and standardize vengeance and retribution.
When the law breaks down, vigilantism (or, more commonly, protection rackets) will arise.
I prefer law and order. But, let’s not lose sight of why we have “law and order.” Its not to handle criminals... it’s to dissuade ordinary folks from taking matters into their own hands.
American HN readers: Is everything alright? It seems a new kind of on-the-edge over there. Does it truly feel unsafe to the extent that people resort to violent and intrusive systems like these?
Citizens are conditioned to believe that police will solve all the crimes from shows like True Crime, CSI, etc. And when said criminals are such masterminds that even the police can't catch, they are then conditioned by superhero movies from Marvel, Superman, Batman, etc. that someone should rise up to catch such criminals, this is the end state. See, every kid is taught and empowered growing up that they should stan…
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/16/voters-perc...
Local news Facebook comments are full of "there's so much crime! it was never like this when I was younger!" but the reality is completely in the opposite direction.
American HN readers: Is everything alright? It seems a new kind of on-the-edge over there. Does it truly feel unsafe to the extent that people resort to violent and intrusive systems like these?
> Citizen does moderate comments, but "two people having an argument about whether or not someone’s comment is racist drives engagement," LOL, my publicist does this on linkedin and other places for us because people are gullible. Source article: Executive of does a thing 0 engagement, nobody knows Social Media version: [First] Executive of does a thing 15,000 comments, 2 million reach, supporters and detractors argu…
In many communities it’s clear that the DAs won’t prosecute criminals, so vigilantism is inevitable. People demand justice, in other words punishment, for criminals, and they will obtain it if the system fails. We’re heading toward the Albanian model and that’s actually OK. If we all drop our little safe happy delusions we’ll see it’s necessary to get your own justice.
This attitude is fundamentally incompatible with American (really, all Western) civic values. It goes against what our entire system of law is built on.
Western civilization has failed, by and large. It's up to the people in the wreckage to figure out something better. The judicial system has failed, and it's not going to improve from here on out.
It's crazy watching the world turn into a dystopia and being powerless to stop it. It not just about this company. If they fail another will replace it. Society seems to be on a convergent path with dystopian scifi. This, Chicago police automated policing program (detects crime before it happenes and actually hurt innocent people), racially biased facial recognition. I read an article today about some DNA software be…
> It's crazy watching the world turn into a dystopia and being powerless to stop it. We feel powerless - I feel it too at times - but we're not. Who would have thought the world could change this much? We can change it also for the better. The social world we envision is very deeply ingrained in humans, probably through evolution. We are social creatures, not sociopathic. I think a start is standing up for our human…
