Flock Safety building.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/?#map=18/33.816682/-84.497494>
Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
171–180 of 184 posts
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#172Even 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.
This assumes the police even want to solve crimes. I'm not convinced they do. Everything I've seen points to them wanting to do the absolute bare minimum to not be disbanded, and that's it. Their primary goal is to get paid and go home. Well, solving crimes interferes with the "go home" part, so they don't. Normally, in a free market, you would fail if you can't do your primary purpose. Police have zero accountabilit…
I think this relies on anecdata rather than real data. Police obviously do solve crimes, if they didn't, the US would look a lot more like Haiti. They could be solving more, with better technology, but that doesn't seem like a discussion that we're willing to have on HN.
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
In China the pact (true or not is irrelevant) is that the State has this power and enacts it for the benefit of everyone. In the US surveillance doesn’t have the same role, it’s just another figment of extreme profit making. Flock has no role in the social pact, it’s just a dystopian company profiting from the current situation.
This is a mischaracterization. Flock helps solve around 700k crimes in the US per year and is involved in ~10k missing person cases (this claim comes from Gemini). It's reported to assist in around ~10% of crimes. To call what they're doing "dystopian" is ignoring the upside: it's certainly saved many lives, that's undebatable.
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two separate types of events with associated probabilities: 1) the probability of being harmed by criminals, and 2) the probability of being harmed by the government. For most people in most places, police are ineffective and therefore the first is orders of magnitude more of a problem. For example in the Bay Area, car break-ins are incredibly common and police are incapable of solving it. This would be unt…
> There are two separate types of events with associated probabilities: 1) the probability of being harmed by criminals, and 2) the probability of being harmed by the government. #1 is annoying but has many solutions. You can call the cops, you can defend yourself, you can sue in the courts. #2 is the most terrifying one since there is absolutely nothing you can do. Thus any society needs to do the utmost to prevent…
> #1 is annoying but has many solutions. You can call the cops, you can defend yourself, you can sue in the courts.
It's glaringly obvious that you don't live in a major city. Defend yourself? So you're advocating, in the US, that you engage in a shoot out with the criminal? Like a sister comment said, if your laptop is stolen out of your car, who are you going to sue? To live in a US city is to be surrounded by criminals who rule the streets with impunity.
> #2 is the most terrifying one since there is absolutely nothing you can do.
The US is still a democracy (to its own fault) regardless of how many Flock cameras exist and how they're being used. Why not advocate for changing laws around data use and retention. What is being advocated for instead is that we get rid of the cameras because of all of the theoretical potential harms, while losing the benefit that we get as a society right now (700k crimes solved/helped solved per year by Flock, including 10k missing persons cases). It's just maddening that people are leapfrogging to a theoretical scenario while victims of crime are truly suffering today.
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is I think if you give people the choice between a 0.001% chance of getting murdered on the street or a 100% chance of being surveilled 24/7 you will find that people will take their chances with the murderers
0.001% chance of being murdered is 1 in 100000 which is about the murder rate of the UK. That does not seem to stop the UK from wanting more surveillance. The problem with murder rate is it doesn't matter what the actual numbers are. Just bombard people with bad news 24/7 and they will believe the sky is falling and murderous mobs are roaming the streets.
Who in the UK wants more surveillance?
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if I leave my bike unlocked in London city, it will not get stolen?
yes, more that likely it will If you leave your bike unlocked in Amsterdam will it get stolen? yes, and its a higher trust country than the uk remember that trust and crime are not 100% correlated.
To me, the physical property safety is ONE OF the pillars of high trust.
Meaning, you cannot trust people in these places to not take your stuff. And it isn't most of them, its the <1% they tolerate.
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is I think if you give people the choice between a 0.001% chance of getting murdered on the street or a 100% chance of being surveilled 24/7 you will find that people will take their chances with the murderers
0.001% chance of being murdered is 1 in 100000 which is about the murder rate of the UK. That does not seem to stop the UK from wanting more surveillance. The problem with murder rate is it doesn't matter what the actual numbers are. Just bombard people with bad news 24/7 and they will believe the sky is falling and murderous mobs are roaming the streets.
> That does not seem to stop the UK from wanting more surveillance.
UK politicians, perhaps. I'm not sure the UK public is entirely behind them.
> Just bombard people with bad news 24/7 and they will believe the sky is falling and murderous mobs are roaming the streets.
That, alas, is sadly true.
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
This assumes the police even want to solve crimes. I'm not convinced they do. Everything I've seen points to them wanting to do the absolute bare minimum to not be disbanded, and that's it. Their primary goal is to get paid and go home. Well, solving crimes interferes with the "go home" part, so they don't. Normally, in a free market, you would fail if you can't do your primary purpose. Police have zero accountabilit…
I think this relies on anecdata rather than real data. Police obviously do solve crimes, if they didn't, the US would look a lot more like Haiti. They could be solving more, with better technology, but that doesn't seem like a discussion that we're willing to have on HN.
They are already militarized, they have the best technology in the world. Better than most nation’s militaries. It doesn’t help much, because the incentives are such that they don’t get rewarded in any way for solving crimes.
It’s not anecdata, it’s analyzing the incentive structures of our institutions. You have to do that analysis because nobody is going to be a hero. Yes, there are some heros, but there’s no systemic way to make people heros. You need structure.
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
In China the pact (true or not is irrelevant) is that the State has this power and enacts it for the benefit of everyone. In the US surveillance doesn’t have the same role, it’s just another figment of extreme profit making. Flock has no role in the social pact, it’s just a dystopian company profiting from the current situation.
This is a mischaracterization. Flock helps solve around 700k crimes in the US per year and is involved in ~10k missing person cases (this claim comes from Gemini). It's reported to assist in around ~10% of crimes. To call what they're doing "dystopian" is ignoring the upside: it's certainly saved many lives, that's undebatable.
To me the fact tha policing through profiling all citizen is already a dystopia. The fact that a private company gets paid to do it and collect the data is even worse.
Re: Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
#180People 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.
I always wonder how japan does it. I think one part of it is conformity, but they still seem to be very creative. Maybe not get-rid-of-turn-signal-stalks creative, or disrupt taxicabs creative.