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Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

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Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#221

Post by mrob »

slg wrote: post #220
mrob wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone marks the difference between epistolary narration (which by convention may be unreliable) and omniscient narration (which by convention is always reliable). I'm well aware what Paul Verhoeven intended, but he failed at conveying that intention on the screen. What we actually see is a society that's more ethical than any real world society in times of war. If Verhoeven didn't want us to believe that then he s…

>I'm well aware what Paul Verhoeven intended, but he failed at conveying that intention on the screen. Poe's law suggests that what you're asking for is impossible, there will always be people unable to read sarcasm or parody. Knowing this, I believe Verhoeven included those "Would you like to know more?" segments as the equivalent of a ;-) or /s to indicate his intent. I'm sorry to be blunt, but obviously some of us…

He could have introduced a second level of narrative nesting with a single title card at the beginning. Something like "United Citizen Federation presents: Heroes of the Bug Wars" would have made it clear. Lacking evidence to the contrary we have to assume it works like every other movie. Failing to provide this evidence when it would have been easy to do so is bad film-making.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#222

Post by drnick1 »

The main issue is that fearmongering, aggressive marketing (as seen here), and subsidized pricing has convinced people to buy that spyware. The playbook is very much the same as for the Alexa and other "bugs" people now willingly pay for and place in the middle of their homes, constantly recording and monitoring their activities.

In reality, these cameras are next to useless when it comes to protecting the owners as seen in other news. If you fear a home invasion, it's a shotgun that you need, not a Ring camera.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#223

Post by slg »

mrob wrote: post #221
slg wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm well aware what Paul Verhoeven intended, but he failed at conveying that intention on the screen. Poe's law suggests that what you're asking for is impossible, there will always be people unable to read sarcasm or parody. Knowing this, I believe Verhoeven included those "Would you like to know more?" segments as the equivalent of a ;-) or /s to indicate his intent. I'm sorry to be blunt, but obviously some of us…

He could have introduced a second level of narrative nesting with a single title card at the beginning. Something like "United Citizen Federation presents: Heroes of the Bug Wars" would have made it clear. Lacking evidence to the contrary we have to assume it works like every other movie. Failing to provide this evidence when it would have been easy to do so is bad film-making.

>Lacking evidence to the contrary we have to assume it works like every other movie. Failing to provide this evidence when it would have been easy to do so is bad film-making.

Which brings us full circle back to my first reply to you, there is no evidence in the movie either way on the justification for their actions. You're reading that we must trust the fascists in the film due to film conventions is just as reliant on outside knowledge as my argument that we shouldn't trust the fascists in the film because they are fascists.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#224

Post by 5upplied_demand »

toephu2 wrote: post #125
thewebguyd wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me, absolutely not. Unfortunately, my opinion seems to be increasingly in the minority and more and more people will happily be surveilled for even just an illusory promise of safety. The harsh truth is that safety/security can never be guaranteed. No amount of surveillance will 100% prevent any individual from being a victim of a crime. Surveillance might help catching the criminal to face justice afterwards, but it…

There is no expectation of privacy in the public setting though. Anyone can record you in public without your permission. > No amount of surveillance will 100% prevent any individual from being a victim of a crime. No, but if it reduces crime by 99% would you be in favor of it? (See South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore.. examples of democratic countries with CCTVs all over the public space.. and before you say well those a…

> This is because they have strict laws against crime and these laws are actually enforced

Just before this, you said it was because of CCTV. Is it the CCTV or the strict laws and enforcement?

India and South Africa are democratic countries with large CCTV programs and high crime rates.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#225

Post by EA-3167 »

mjr00 wrote: post #20

The Dark Knight was released in 2008. In that movie, Batman hijacks citizens' cellphones to track down the Joker, and it's presented as a major moral and ethical dilemma as part of the movie's overall themes. The only way Batman remains a "good guy" in the eyes of the audience is by destroying the entire thing once he's done. Crazy to think that less than two decades later, an even more powerful surveillance technolo…

If you want to see where the discussion on privacy and tech has gone since, suffer through the recent “film” Mercy. A sane reading of the premise would suggest a profoundly anti-surveillance and AI message, but it’s quite the opposite.

In an way it’s best paired with the Amazon mess War of The Worlds, which is so thematically empty that it ultimately seems to suggest that while you can’t trust the government with your data, Amazon is a great custodian!

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#226

Post by Dylan16807 »

alex43578 wrote: post #218
Dylan16807 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea who you mean by the first group. Security cameras are fine for filming your own property .

1st amendment auditors = confrontational streamers who deliberately take public filming to an extreme. Any cameras are fine for recording any public property . That’s the whole idea of being in public: others can see you, you can see them, and you aren’t (shouldn’t) be doing something you wouldn’t mind being recorded. You have no expectation of privacy standing on a sidewalk.

I'm fine that others can see me. But we don't have to extend that to unlimited recording. We don't have to extend that to robots.

50 years ago you didn't have privacy walking around outside but you weren't subject to constant surveillance and tracking. The current state isn't some inevitable fact of life. It's fixable without any draconian action.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#227

Post by [deleted] »

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #45
mjr00 wrote: post #20

The Dark Knight was released in 2008. In that movie, Batman hijacks citizens' cellphones to track down the Joker, and it's presented as a major moral and ethical dilemma as part of the movie's overall themes. The only way Batman remains a "good guy" in the eyes of the audience is by destroying the entire thing once he's done. Crazy to think that less than two decades later, an even more powerful surveillance technolo…

This is a bit orthogonal to the article, but Christopher Nolan gives me the willies. Almost all his films have this kind authoritarian apologia in them.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#228

Post by [deleted] »

pibaker wrote: post #76

There would be less backlash to the Ring ad if the ad was honest about how people actually use it. Show us porch pirates, burglars and stupid neighbor who backs into your car being caught on camera. But instead, they have to come up with something "wholesome" like finding your lost doggo. The wholesomeness is so forced and cringe that it makes you think they have something to hide. It almost feels like the people who…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#229

Post by mrob »

slg wrote: post #223
mrob wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could have introduced a second level of narrative nesting with a single title card at the beginning. Something like "United Citizen Federation presents: Heroes of the Bug Wars" would have made it clear. Lacking evidence to the contrary we have to assume it works like every other movie. Failing to provide this evidence when it would have been easy to do so is bad film-making.

>Lacking evidence to the contrary we have to assume it works like every other movie. Failing to provide this evidence when it would have been easy to do so is bad film-making. Which brings us full circle back to my first reply to you, there is no evidence in the movie either way on the justification for their actions. You're reading that we must trust the fascists in the film due to film conventions is just as relian…

The evidence is shown on screen. We see the asteroid fired at Earth. We see Buenos Aires destroyed. We see the bugs killing the humans. If you call this unreliable narration it becomes impossible to discuss any fiction at all, because once you reject basic narrative conventions you can make up any nonsense you like and nobody can argue against it.

Calling the characters "fascists" because they use fascist aesthetics is basically acting like an LLM. It's only engaging with the surface detail without having a solid world-model to back up your thoughts. You could call it "vibe watching". If you look at what's actually happening, following the standard conventions of motion picture story-telling, the characters are not fascists. And if the director intended them to be fascists but omitted anything that would make that clear, he shouldn't be surprised when people watch it like a normal action movie.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#230

Post by slyall »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #137
whiskey-one wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subsequently in PoI we see two imperfect super-intelligent AIs let loose in the real world fight each other for domination and their objectives. For me, it’s a question of when, not if this happens in real life.

Person of Interest is really good. Unfortunately I learned too much about the lead's IRL behavior, and it's on my shelf of shows I'll enjoy once the involved parties aren't collecting royalties anymore. It absolutely takes people on a police procedural that drags viewers unwittingly into watching a science fiction show, and I'm totally here for all of it.

I see it as a textbook approach of a show that built up the characters with "number of the week" episodes and then integrated the world-building and big arcs gradually.

Very hard to do and less common these days with shorter series.

oh and the actor will be getting royalties until he dies so you are are effectively waiting for that. Maybe get the episodes in a way that doesn't give him money.

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