61–70 of 92 posts
The fear of an imminent surveillance state just rings so hollow to me. It used to appeal to me as an existential threat, but then real world experience made me realize how implausible this is, not due to technological limitations but political will. We already have surveillance states. Walk into any chain drug store in the country and you'll be met with cameras tracking your every movement, deodorant under lock and k…
The fear of an imminent surveillance state just rings so hollow to me. It used to appeal to me as an existential threat, but then real world experience made me realize how implausible this is, not due to technological limitations but political will. We already have surveillance states. Walk into any chain drug store in the country and you'll be met with cameras tracking your every movement, deodorant under lock and k…
1. The cost of arrest. Actually sending someone to pick the person up and put them in handcuffs, process and change them.
2. The cost of prosecution. Having lawyers build a case, schedule a judge and courtroom.
3. The cost of enforcement. Putting someone in prison or threatening to put them in prison if they don't pay back what is stolen. Tracking if they paid it back. If they get probation it is cheaper but a probation officer is required.
These are expensive and use limited resources. Policing and governments prioritize these resources for more serious crimes like murder. Constitutional rights, including due process dramatically increase these costs. Mass surveillance made investigation and determining who did what for minor crimes done in public much much cheaper, so we just hit the next cost bottleneck.
The solution to the enforcement bottleneck is automated enforcement. This will likely be rolled out over the next ten to twenty years. If you steal from a store, you get banned from the entire story chain. This means living life very difficult, so you pay a fine. It is likely that stores will make lots of mistakes and flag innocent people, but most people will pay the fine because it is more convenient.
The situation is entirely different in a police state with no constitutional protections. The government can simply lock you out of everything you need to live because you did buy enough Dear Leader portraits this quarter. You can't use your car, can't call a ride share, can't catch a bus, can't buy food, can't get electricity to heat your house to keep your family comfortable. Instead of a fine, you need to walk to closest detention center, confess your guilt, lock yourself in and do manual labor and reeducation until the state allows you to leave. This system requires no guards.
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> because I'd rather not give money to Mullvad any more ?????? Why?
Front page HN 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717469 One of the two Mullvad founders and shareholders provides 70% of a Swedish far-right political party's funding.
Someone flagged you, so I vouched.
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I found it to have just enough substance to make me take a look at what Nym VPN is, because I'd rather not give money to Mullvad any more, but the VPN looks like something for shilling crypto.
Nym is pretty complicated and although they offer some kind of traditional VPN service as well IIRC, their main product is actually the only large scale operational "mixnet", which you can think of as kinda similar to Tor but a lot more resistant to certain types of deanonymization attacks (specifically it's designed to be safe against passive global adversaries, ie an attacker who can monitor every packet on the int…
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> because I'd rather not give money to Mullvad any more ?????? Why?
Front page HN 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717469 One of the two Mullvad founders and shareholders provides 70% of a Swedish far-right political party's funding.
The fear of an imminent surveillance state just rings so hollow to me. It used to appeal to me as an existential threat, but then real world experience made me realize how implausible this is, not due to technological limitations but political will. We already have surveillance states. Walk into any chain drug store in the country and you'll be met with cameras tracking your every movement, deodorant under lock and k…
Ever wonder why they let those criminals seemingly get away with it? Think one extra step ahead.
> 5. Surveillance can only be defeated by building software and hardware to defend ourselves. Here's where it went off the rails. Once you've abandoned the idea of democracy and peaceful self-governance, you're just another technofascist. You are Palantir, just in an earlier stage.
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> trivially disprovable Then disprove it. Here's some data around catch and release: Among persons admitted to state prison in 2014 across 34 states, 77% had five or more prior arrests in their criminal history, including the arrest that resulted in their prison sentence. About half of persons admitted in 2014 were released by the end of 2015. Among these released persons, over half (59%) were arrested at least once…
77% != 9 out of 10 and 5 != dozens. Seems like you’re doing a good job of disproving your own exaggerated claims.
The fear of an imminent surveillance state just rings so hollow to me. It used to appeal to me as an existential threat, but then real world experience made me realize how implausible this is, not due to technological limitations but political will. We already have surveillance states. Walk into any chain drug store in the country and you'll be met with cameras tracking your every movement, deodorant under lock and k…
> Police should use it to capture and stop the 1% of the population that's making life much more difficult for the rest of us. And they should lock them up for a considerable amount of time, not as rehabilitation or punishment, just to make the lives of ~99% of us better off. Maybe not 3 strikes, but can we settle on 10? 20? Anything would help. criminals are not out there making life difficult for you. you are far m…
And then there's the minor inconveniences, too many to worth mentioning. These are the things that affect my life.
I could care less about someone whose daily routine involved "patrolling for ICE". I don't see myself trying to purposely obstruct law enforcement so maybe I can't empathize. I just don't see "professional agitateur" in my future so I focus on things that affect me.
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I don't remember Elon Musk breaking into my garage and stealing my bike. But you never know, they never caught the guy.
Street crime is tangible, visceral, and visible. When someone physically accosts you or physically invades your space, you feel it. Incestuous "robber baron" state-capitalism that privatizes gains and socializes losses, or outright white-collar crime, are not so tangible. You don't see it or feel it. It doesn't feel as invasive. It's worse though, with the only exception being violent crime against your body. It does…