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The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

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Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#111

Post by __d »

sneak wrote: post #37
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’m torn on this one; as a photographer and videographer I find the right to shoot or film anything I can see from a legal vantage point very near and dear to me. We should always be legally allowed to film public places. Europe’s legislative approach to this is wrong, I think, but I see the problem. Perhaps we need different societal norms.

I'm ok with it being legal to photograph, video, or record audio of public spaces without people.

I'm pretty sure I'd prefer that photographing, filming, or audio recording me in an identifiable way was illegal without my explicit consent.

I think public officials should be subject to recording while performing their duties. I think celebrities should not, unless they explicitly consent.

Security cameras might need some sort of exemption: record, but don't look except under explicit circumstances (like, you've been robbed).

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#112

Post by ClumsyPilot »

infogulch wrote: post #11
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…

> The difference between a smartwatch and an ankle monitor ... The real difference is who can access and control the generated data . An ankle monitor's purpose is explicitly to send your location history to the government. A smartwatch's purpose is ostensibly to help you record your activities so you can analyze and optimize your life, which on its own is not unreasonable, but in reality there is little separating t…

> The solution here isn't more regulation, it's individual sovereignty over data you generate.

It us government regulation that protects your sovereignty over your body or anything at all, including from the government itself

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#113

Post by pooper »

tomcam wrote: post #98
FredPret wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pooper, you should run for office

I too must hear more about the Pooper platform

Sorry to disappoint but I'll never win any election. Inconsistency annoys me so I'll try to make my thoughts consistent.

One thing I learned from HN is housing cannot be both a universal human right and a reliable asset for people to retire out of so I must choose the former. This by itself means I cannot win any meaningful political office, or if I do, I cannot imagine not being swiftly nerfed so I won't be able to act on it.

Now that I've alienated homeowners, next idea I have is elimination of all credits, deductions, and exclusions or anything like that when it comes to taxes. You can probably see how this is a very bad idea for national security.

Next idea is eliminating income eligibility or similar ideas in government programs. Everyone from the richest people to the poorest should feel safe to take advantage of all our programs.

At this point, I'm sure I've made enough enemies that I won't even get ballot access (:

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#114

Post by ALittleLight »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #108
ALittleLight wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think corporal punishment and fines should play a much larger role. Someone who is basically a nuisance, like, a vandal, or a thief, should be dealt with via fines or community service and a punitive flogging. There is no need to incarcerate such a person for extended time at high cost to society and to the individual being punished. Criminals who are deranged, either in the sense of committing especial…

is there any evidence to backup the approached you propose as effective, efficient, or desirable in any way? Especially since you seem to advocate flogging, which is a form of torture. And advocate executions, which grants the government ultinate tyranical power over a citizen. And when a mistake is made, and the innocent is executed, this mistake can never be corrected. Such mistakes are quite conmon, as apparently…

I don't believe our current system (in the US) is based on evidence, so I see no reason to limit alternatives to being backed by evidence. I've never had the opportunity to run my own justice system, so no, I can't say how well it works.

I think corporal punishment is vastly more humane and prefer it largely for humanitarian reasons. If we were torturing prisoners, and I proposed we stopped, would you ask for the evidence to back up the idea that cutting out torture was a good idea?

There needs to be some deterrent, but taking years from a person's life, and forcing them to live in squalid conditions and in close proximity to violent criminals, is not a humane deterrent, it is not an effective deterrent (as evidenced by recidivism rates), and it is not an effective deterrent in terms of either dollars or time.

Flogging, by contrast, can be executed quickly and cheaply, and, while the injury might stay with you for weeks, doesn't take a large quantity of your life. Flogging is also visually impressive and likely to be something that most people want to avoid. Flogging has a long history of use as a punishment too - suggesting it would have a useful deterrent effect.

Regarding execution - no mistakes can ever be corrected. If you send a person to prison and they commit suicide, die of disease, or are killed by another inmate, all of which are vastly more common in prison than in the general population, you can't undo your mistake should you discover that the person sentenced was wrongfully convicted. Likewise, even if you sentence someone for five years, discover after two it was a mistake, they do not get their life back. Does this mean we should never imprison people?

It's fine to say there should be a higher bar of proof required for execution, but the finality of the sentence is not a reason not to employ it. There are people who have committed heinous crimes caught on video, attested to by witnesses, placed at the scene by evidence, and who have confessed their own guilt, and who have no plausible defense. In such a scenario why should we stay punishment out of a paranoia that maybe, despite all evidence, we might be wrong and might one day want to release this horrible criminal back to the general population?

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#115

Post by heavyset_go »

cr4nberry wrote: post #80

There's something weird about wearables and also recent advances in home surveillance. I see people posting here that the customers don't want surveillance, they want metrics. But, like... why? What's the appeal? People will spend hundreds of dollars on something like an Apple watch, and all it really does is make texts and calls slightly more convenient (I don't buy it) and give you little metrics to look at. People…

The whole 'quantified self' thing was both about addressing niche wants for metrics and creating a mainstream market for those metrics, and the devices that collect them, as well.

To answer your question, the appeal was originally niche and expensive advertising campaigns convinced consumers that they needed it, too.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#116

Post by krapp »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #112
infogulch wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between a smartwatch and an ankle monitor ... The real difference is who can access and control the generated data . An ankle monitor's purpose is explicitly to send your location history to the government. A smartwatch's purpose is ostensibly to help you record your activities so you can analyze and optimize your life, which on its own is not unreasonable, but in reality there is little separating t…

> The solution here isn't more regulation, it's individual sovereignty over data you generate. It us government regulation that protects your sovereignty over your body or anything at all, including from the government itself

There's no such thing as government regulation that protects you from the government. That's like trusting sociopaths with following the honor system. They may be effective at pretending to follow the law, but if the government wants your body, your data, or anything at all, they'll just take it.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#117

Post by krapp »

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.

Yes, because governments can have you silenced, arrested, tortured or killed, whereas tech companies can at best only ban you from their platforms, or not target ads or content to you.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#118

Post by WalterBright »

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 is a reasonable solution for nonviolent offenders. If they violate the house arrest, then they go to an actual prison.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#119

Post by [deleted] »

cr4nberry wrote: post #80

There's something weird about wearables and also recent advances in home surveillance. I see people posting here that the customers don't want surveillance, they want metrics. But, like... why? What's the appeal? People will spend hundreds of dollars on something like an Apple watch, and all it really does is make texts and calls slightly more convenient (I don't buy it) and give you little metrics to look at. People…

[deleted]

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#120

Post by jspotanski »

wcarron wrote: post #66

We are rapidly approaching Fahrenheit 451. I was about to purchase a COROS fitness watch to track and aid my return to distance running. This article reminded me why I should not.

I have an old COROS and picked it precisely because it's not much more than damn good running watch with a battery that lasts for weeks. It's definitely not necessary for road running, but I needed it for unfamiliar trail running routes.
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