Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 205 posts

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#41

Post by ericmay »

nostrademons wrote: post #20
radicaldreamer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you not choose this over what prison is currently like? This is like asking whether people would prefer home confinement to being in a prison cell

Interestingly the state has an incentive to take this approach too: it's much cheaper. If you can monitor & enforce confinement without actually building any prisons, you don't need to budget for prisons, you don't need to operate prisons (or contract out to them), and you can avoid the political blowback of the prison/industrial complex. The limiting case for this is the Matrix or Metaverse, where everybody voluntar…

This is just called house arrest. It’s not really prison or punishment if I’m comfortable at home.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#42

Post by MerelyMortal »

pwinnski wrote: post #18
radicaldreamer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you not choose this over what prison is currently like? This is like asking whether people would prefer home confinement to being in a prison cell

You're halfway there. Now consider: why are people paying to put themselves in a light-security prison?

Because they don't recognize it will become a prison, or even if they do, they rationize it by saying it's not currently a prison.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#43

Post by 1123581321 »

ericmay wrote: post #41
nostrademons wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly the state has an incentive to take this approach too: it's much cheaper. If you can monitor & enforce confinement without actually building any prisons, you don't need to budget for prisons, you don't need to operate prisons (or contract out to them), and you can avoid the political blowback of the prison/industrial complex. The limiting case for this is the Matrix or Metaverse, where everybody voluntar…

This is just called house arrest. It’s not really prison or punishment if I’m comfortable at home.

House arrest serves one of prison’s purposes, reduction of danger to others. It may also be a suitable place from which to rehabilitate.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#44

Post by goodpoint »

ewzimm wrote: post #5

If there were an Amazon Prison option, I wonder how many people would choose it. Need to serve time? Skip the cell and stay home with a robust suite of real-time behavior analytics to ensure compliance. Conversations are processed locally and scanned for restricted subjects with advanced AI. A special Amazon Prison store offers a full suite of approved products with automatic payments, accessible with Alexa, and cust…

It's already happening. Surveillance using modern technology e.g. GPS ankle bracelets, voice recognition, facial recognition is being widely deployed.

For decades surveillance has becoming cheaper and therefore more pervasive and more socially accepted.

We are building platforms that can enable turn-key dictatorship.

Something that will be extremely difficult to overturn.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#45

Post by tetromino_ »

DennisP wrote: post #22
pooper wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the article but I think the outrage is misplaced. There are people forced to wear a Islamic head dress. The solution is not to ban Islamic head dress. There are people forced into sex slavery and prostitution. The solution isn't to ban prostitution. There are people who are forced into an abortion. The solution is not to ban abortion. The solution to abuse cannot be curtailing of rights.

What about my neighbor's Ring doorbell, pointed at my front door from across the street?

I don't know about you and your neighbor. But my neighbor (a black man, fyi) was very happy that my Nest camera's field of view was just barely wide enough to include his door and window, and recorded video of the dude who climbed through his window and stole his kid's MacBook.

A couple days after that, my neighbor got a camera of his own. I'm happy that he did so; my camera made his home safer, and his makes mine safer.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#46

Post by HWR_14 »

tetromino_ wrote: post #45
DennisP wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about my neighbor's Ring doorbell, pointed at my front door from across the street?

I don't know about you and your neighbor. But my neighbor (a black man, fyi) was very happy that my Nest camera's field of view was just barely wide enough to include his door and window, and recorded video of the dude who climbed through his window and stole his kid's MacBook. A couple days after that, my neighbor got a camera of his own. I'm happy that he did so; my camera made his home safer, and his makes mine sa…

The point is, he didn't opt in to being surveilled by Amazon. That it had a positive outcome is irrelevant to the point. It's a strange anecdata.

What's the difference between what you wrote and responding to someone who is in favor on limits of publicly brandishing guns with: I don't know about your neighbor. But my neighbor (a black man, fyi) was very happy that I sat on my porch with a loaded shotgun every evening, and shot the dude who climbed through his window and stole his kid's MacBook.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#47

Post by colpabar »

staticautomatic wrote: post #31
radicaldreamer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state, unfortunately, does not have a great incentive to reduce costs; especially since a lot of prisons are run by for-profit entities.

…that are paid by the state.

The state is just people though, and people like money. It's pretty naive to think that the politicians in charge of this stuff don't get huge kickbacks from private prison operators.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#48

Post by dnissley »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #32

"What does it mean when one's life becomes completely legible to tech companies?" Does it mean something different than if one's life becomes completely legible to a government. If yes, then why.

More fundamentally, does this tech actually make one's life completely legible to tech companies?

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#49

Post by mechanical_bear »

pooper wrote: post #4
adolph wrote: post #2

I hope this doesn't get flagged, although I thought to flag it about a quarter of the way in. Essentially the thesis is that people opting into personal surveillance are changing norms, changes that will be misused by state and employer power against people who don't opt in. Hidden below all of this is the normalization of surveillance that consistently targets marginalized communities. The difference between a smart…

I haven't read the article but I think the outrage is misplaced. There are people forced to wear a Islamic head dress. The solution is not to ban Islamic head dress. There are people forced into sex slavery and prostitution. The solution isn't to ban prostitution. There are people who are forced into an abortion. The solution is not to ban abortion. The solution to abuse cannot be curtailing of rights.

First of all, at least you are honest about commenting on something for which you have no basis to be commenting on, having not read the article.

Second, the appropriate response may not be to ban all of those things outright, but comprehensive regulation is certainly within the best interests of society.

Finally, the casual assertion of abortion as a right is noted and summarily rejected. I won’t engage further though on that point, in an effort to not drag us off topic.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#50

Post by tetromino_ »

HWR_14 wrote: post #46
tetromino_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you and your neighbor. But my neighbor (a black man, fyi) was very happy that my Nest camera's field of view was just barely wide enough to include his door and window, and recorded video of the dude who climbed through his window and stole his kid's MacBook. A couple days after that, my neighbor got a camera of his own. I'm happy that he did so; my camera made his home safer, and his makes mine sa…

The point is, he didn't opt in to being surveilled by Amazon. That it had a positive outcome is irrelevant to the point. It's a strange anecdata. What's the difference between what you wrote and responding to someone who is in favor on limits of publicly brandishing guns with: I don't know about your neighbor. But my neighbor (a black man, fyi) was very happy that I sat on my porch with a loaded shotgun every evening…

The difference is that your example is made-up while mine is true, recent, and (I believe) representative of normal people's attitudes. Normal people love cameras because normal people much prefer being surveilled by Amazon (or, in most cases, by Amazon's cheaper and less secure Chinese competitors in the camera business) vs. having their home broken into and their pawnable electronics stolen.
Post reply on HN