51–60 of 156 posts
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The best prevention is preventing criminal behaviour. By taking care of mental health, community, opportunity and support.
The vast majority of violent criminals are not mentally ill.
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Imagine a world where ubiquitous automated cameras sent you a ticket every time you jaywalked, or if your car automatically reported you every time you exceeded the speed limit. I'm probably being naive, but I think having rules that are universally enforced would be much better than our current approach of selective enforcement. I'd expect that as soon as those with power to change the law are negatively affected by…
You're extremely naive. The US and its individual states have a litany of laws on the books. There are so many that I can get sure every person breaks at least one law everyday, gay people in particular. It's sad but most laws do not get repealed.
Likely, although my belief is only that selective enforcement of a "litany of laws" is worse than universal enforcement of that same overreach, and I don't disagree that it's practically impossible to live life or run a business 100% legally. I'm not questioning that there is ridiculous overreach, only suggesting that universal enforcement might be a solution.
There are so many that I can get sure every person breaks at least one law everyday
My usual example when the topic comes up is asking people whether they have been properly self-reporting and paying in-state sales tax on their out-of-state purchases as required by law in most states. I was impressed by one friend (a law professor) who was surprised to learn this, and now strives to be legally compliant.
It's sad but most laws do not get repealed.
Yes, but I think this is because we are relying so heavily on selective enforcement. It's certainly true that universal enforcement would be very difficult, and may have significant downsides, but I'd bet that if our legislators start losing their driving licenses for speeding offenses (or as you point out, if they, their gay friends, or family members were jailed for sodomy), the congressional gridlock would be broken and a lot of laws would swiftly be changed or repealed.
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Probably mainly smoke and mirrors. I've lost count of the number of UK stories where some terrorist or criminal was known to authorities, or already on a watch list. They never manage to catch or prevent despite all these huge surveillance programmes. Then the news almost inevitably follows up that they've found out there were public exchanges of messages on Twitter 2 days before the incident or some such. It would b…
>> I see no war on ladders. Have you tried to buy a large ladder lately? They come covered in so many warning stickers you'd think you were buying pesticide. Snowmobiles come with fewer warnings.
Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…
I definitely share your views. If I'm in public, I by definition should not expect privacy.
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The vast majority of violent criminals are not mentally ill.
It does not seem like a stretch to expand the definition of mental illness to include mental conditions which predispose to the commission of violent crimes. Certainly such conditions are maladaptive for the sufferer.
Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…
I definitely share your views. If I'm in public, I by definition should not expect privacy.
Are police allowed to stand on the street and look over your fence, or through your windows?
Are police allowed to leave a camera outside your house so they don't have to stand there while they look over your fence or through your windows?
This is particularly pertinent because the FBI happen to believe that everything that can be seen from public space is public. (And airspace more than a few meters above your house is also public.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11912696 was on HN just a few months ago.
I'm led to believe that all that surveillance isn't for thief-catching. Surveillance is valuable, otherwise so many cameras wouldn't watch streets all over. I counted 15 cameras between my bus stop and my office 3 blocks away last winter. So what's the surveillance for? Probably preventing property damage, maybe keep hobos from whizzing in doorways and such. But please, let's stop pretending that the surveillance is…
To prove to insurance you had something stolen as well as to give you "warm and fuzzies". (On surveillance being there to protect property, note the comment in this thread about a surveilled garage being burgled [1].)
>'m probably being naive, but I think having rules that are universally enforced would be much better than our current approach of selective enforcement. You're being naive as all hell. You'd quickly learn about a hell of a lot of rules you're head was previously too far buried in the sand/up your ass (take your pick) to have noticed.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13217110 and marked it off-topic.
Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…
One of the biggest problems with public surveillance isn't what you do in public, it's where you go. You don't have to see what's going on behind closed doors to get the picture when you see someone go into an oncologist's or psychiatrist's office, or an abortion clinic, or an AA meeting, or political party meeting etc. etc.
(Also FWIW males are the victims of violent crime significantly more often than females are.)
Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…
I share this view, largely because visual surveillance of public space is probably a technological inevitability, but under the condition that anyone is allowed to surveil public spaces and that the resulting data from government surveillance is made open source.