51–60 of 184 posts
Even with all this said, surveillance like this is certainly going to be one of the best ways to catch criminals and reduce crime over the long term. I hope the misgivings that we have around Flock won't close the door to us ever using this type of technology, in some way, in the future.
Even with all this said, surveillance like this is certainly going to be one of the best ways to catch criminals and reduce crime over the long term. I hope the misgivings that we have around Flock won't close the door to us ever using this type of technology, in some way, in the future.
Contrary to SF, where I've called the police and provided evidence for an open and shut case, and the cops shrugged their shoulders. Flock cameras won't fix that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just sounds like the standard playbook for this crowd (by which wide brush I mean authoritarians and their enablers). They really hate being called on their lies, and their immediate response is to attack with whatever comes to hand (press release, xeet, the DoJ…depends on the person).
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Please stop grinding whatever axe you think you're grinding, and put that energy towards something useful.
People always want high trust societies. They are incredibly hard to create and incredibly easy to destroy. However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. High trust requires, well, actual trust. You can’t build real trust in a panopticon just a sickly police state facsimile of it. Society and progress moves at the speed of trust. Without it many uniquely human and beautiful things disappear.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just sounds like the standard playbook for this crowd (by which wide brush I mean authoritarians and their enablers). They really hate being called on their lies, and their immediate response is to attack with whatever comes to hand (press release, xeet, the DoJ…depends on the person).
[flagged]
People always want high trust societies. They are incredibly hard to create and incredibly easy to destroy. However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. High trust requires, well, actual trust. You can’t build real trust in a panopticon just a sickly police state facsimile of it. Society and progress moves at the speed of trust. Without it many uniquely human and beautiful things disappear.
The idea that surveillance undermines high trust societies seems insane to me. Widespread petty crime, lack of shared cultural norms and traditions, lacking of missing social reinforcement of expectations of a society - those are what prevent high trust societies from forming. I consider those things a much worse problem then Flock cameras.
Only because, I'm betting, that you view street surveillance as something that binds others, but not yourself. I doubt you would make this argument for any other kind of surveillance.
If Microsoft were to record everything you did on your PC, would you consider Windows the "high trust" OS community vs Linux? Of if your employer began surveilling all your devices (including personal ones) to ensure you weren't stealing from the company, would you consider your company one of "high trust"?
I don't deny that surveillance can reduce crime, but the idea that surveillance undermines high trust societies is relatively straightforward
Even with all this said, surveillance like this is certainly going to be one of the best ways to catch criminals and reduce crime over the long term. I hope the misgivings that we have around Flock won't close the door to us ever using this type of technology, in some way, in the future.
I spent 3 years in Korea, and that's probably where I will go back to retire after I exit. Crime there is extremely low - partially because of the cameras, but mainly because they're on top of it. They're able to spend time on every criminal, which deters anyone from breaking the law. Contrary to SF, where I've called the police and provided evidence for an open and shut case, and the cops shrugged their shoulders. F…
At the same time, on HN we are not even having a conversation about what a sort of tradeoff between surveillance and safety. I live in Seattle, actually just had ~$400 in buckets of paint stolen off my porch just yesterday. Yes, buckets of paint. I had a break in 2 months ago, and that was one of many over the years. This is in U-District, a high crime, but also oddly affluent neighborhood. I absolutely detest the fact that criminals run around the city with impunity committing crime after crime. It makes everyone's life here just a bit more miserable—there are so many people that don't want to move to the city because of the crime; there are all these invisible costs we are paying because of it.
So to think that cameras are such a no-go just doesn't make sense to me. Certainly there are ways to do it ethically. I think south korea is a great example, as well as many european countries. Honestly, I think it's just bizarre that every time Flock gets brought up on HN we all flip the bird to the supposed surveillance state without even discussing the tradeoffs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I spent 3 years in Korea, and that's probably where I will go back to retire after I exit. Crime there is extremely low - partially because of the cameras, but mainly because they're on top of it. They're able to spend time on every criminal, which deters anyone from breaking the law. Contrary to SF, where I've called the police and provided evidence for an open and shut case, and the cops shrugged their shoulders. F…
I used to live in china, which is by all means the dystopian surveillance state that we're all afraid that this could lead to. Don't misinterpret this as an advocation for that type of living; but it's simply interesting to note that when you ask any chinese if they would like to go back to the world of 30 years ago in terms of surveillance, essentially 100% of them will say no; they like it the way things are and no…
People always want high trust societies. They are incredibly hard to create and incredibly easy to destroy. However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. High trust requires, well, actual trust. You can’t build real trust in a panopticon just a sickly police state facsimile of it. Society and progress moves at the speed of trust. Without it many uniquely human and beautiful things disappear.
This is directly refuted by Singapore, Japan, arguably the UK, and others. Singapore is very interesting to visit. Externally there's somewhat of a narrative of a harsh police state but when I visited I almost never saw a single police officer and they don't have particularly many police officers on a per capita basis (170/100k vs 440/100k in NYC). Most of the policing naturally happens by aid of the surveillance system and a very strong effort to take action to bring justice for any crime. As a result, everyone believes crime will be punished and so you end up with a very safe society. This expectation of crime being taken seriously actually _creates_ trust because you can have high faith that any criminal action someone may take will have consequences and therefore be deterred.
People always want high trust societies. They are incredibly hard to create and incredibly easy to destroy. However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. High trust requires, well, actual trust. You can’t build real trust in a panopticon just a sickly police state facsimile of it. Society and progress moves at the speed of trust. Without it many uniquely human and beautiful things disappear.
Sadly, many people just want to be highly trusted in society (whilst themselves fearing most of the rest of it). It's why we flirt with/fall face first into authoritarianism every few decades.
Did the US or any advanced democracy "flirt with/fall face first into authoritarianism" a few decades ago?