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Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

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Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#601

Post by wredcoll »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #528
wredcoll wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What even is a "nato apologist"??? > Where have you seen it used outside of Americans Well, there was this minor thing called "the western roman empire" for a few years, so that might be a starting point. I am fascinated to learn how a claim that westerners "prefer liberty over security" is somehow erasing your culture though.

The Western Roman Empire has nothing to do with "the West". I think it's fascinating that that's even suggested. I lived in Germany for a while. Germany is definitely a part of "the West", have been the defining border with "the East" in the Cold War. Germans do not share a cultural viewpoint about liberty and security with the USA. So claiming that westerners "prefer liberty over security" while also including Germa…

> The Western Roman Empire has nothing to do with "the West". I think it's fascinating that that's even suggested.

I got that bit from wikipedia, it amused me.

As for germans, if they do not share such a viewpoint (and now I want evidence either way), the claim about the west is merely wrong, not "cultural erasure".

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#602

Post by embedding-shape »

prmoustache wrote: post #524
lazide wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a place it isn’t true.

Any city with either an actual city center, an historic center or touristic area. Any restaurant that is in a major business area. Any neighborhood were local zoning is not a thing and local restaurant can be open. We have a lot of tapas or marisquerías places in Spain that are almost only visited by people from the same neighborhood. I like fish and seafood but don't want the smell of it in my kitchen the next day,…

> We have a lot of tapas or marisquerías places in Spain that are almost only visited by people from the same neighborhood

Yes, this is exactly the thing. Our restaurant is in Spain, and what you're saying is very true, which is why Google Maps, Instagram and Facebook tends to be important, as again, half (~guess) the people who arrive found it via Google Maps or Instagram, the rest are people who live nearby.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#603

Post by rob74 »

themafia wrote: post #548
majormajor wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We concurrently see failures on both the "attempts to preserve liberty" and "attempts to preserve security" front, so let's stop arguing about abstract principles. Quotes are pointless, discussion should be limited to what's happening on the ground. For any given thing that happens, do we think that it, specifically, is helpful or harmful. It's trivial to reverse that quote: we can, and have, pushed to keep the US po…

> discussion should be limited to what's happening on the ground Does anyone actually have any idea what's actually happening "on the ground?" > without actually gaining any protection against authoritarian styles of government use of force There are three weapons for every man, woman, and child in the USA. You may enjoy more of this protection than you realize. > While just making civilian-on-civilian violence easie…

> More suicides happen by firearm than murders by a factor of 2:1

According to https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-..., this is true (if you squint) for 2023 (actually in 2023 murders were 38% of gun deaths, suicides and "others" add up to 62%, so 1.6 to 1), but the ratio varies widely for other years. According to the graph https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-..., murders and suicides were much closer together in 2021 - after that, the number of murders has dropped, while the number of suicides kept increasing.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#605

Post by jb1991 »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #572
jb1991 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look at a comparison of American violent crime to other major western nations.

I think I would say the same, that you should actually look at that.

For example, Wikipedia has a page of studies and conclusions about violent crime rates in countries around the world, and the United States isn’t looking so good on that list, which compiles many studies and statistics. It’s far behind both Canada and Europe on violent crime.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#606

Post by Der_Einzige »

js2 wrote: post #331
zugi wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety " -- Benjamin Franklin The key phrase is "a little temporary safety". 250 years ago people understood that the "security" gains were small and fleeting, but the loss of liberty was massive and permanent.

FWIW, the context of the Franklin quote is him defending the ability of the legislature to tax a family that was trying to bribe/lobby the governor to do otherwise. The quote is in defense of the government: WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying bu…

This dynamic always happens with quotes and attempts to deploy the founding fathers in arguments. Most of the founding fathers (except Thomas Paine) were terrible, horrible, no good people. I’d have been a loyalist in that era.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#607

Post by Der_Einzige »

wredcoll wrote: post #469
kortilla wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industrial revolution is quite well documented

Things people did, sure, but not why they did them here and not there is a bit trickier. There's a variety of theories, easy access to coal is my favorite, but some people like to blame the magna carta or something.

Jared diamonds an idiot and “guns germs and steel” is among the worst books written in human history - right up there with Republic and whatever the hell sam Harris is doing.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#608

Post by Der_Einzige »

Nursie wrote: post #585
roysting wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately for us all, the assault on liberty even done of the “normies” have started noticing recent, is only the latter stages of this assault on on America that has been going on for arguably 180 years ago. Many in American history have noted that America is a kind of natural fortress protected by ocean moats. What that assumption just did not take into account is how America’s enemies would take action against…

Sorry, name's taken. I know you're making a point by linking it to 1984, but Oceania is a real name for a continent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania

The most bootlicking anglos in the world are the Australians , despite the extreme competition that NZ and the UK give them. The Orwellian definition IS the real name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#609

Post by pjc50 »

mmooss wrote: post #327
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like it a lot better without the mention to the "West", which, as usual, is a code word for: "I want to pretend my point extend outside the USA but I have absolutely no knowledge of how true that is. I don't intend to do any research because that would demand efforts from me so bear with my casual imperialism". Queue the purely American historical lesson following.

Universal human rights is a very widespread belief and concept, extending to all continents and many, many cultures. It's not hard to understand why.

Yes, but: crucially, not in the USA. The EU human rights framework includes non-citizens, because they are still humans. The US constitutional rights framework does not include non-citizens, which is why ICE have free rein to abuse them.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#610

Post by 3form »

mmooss wrote: post #561
3form wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And any leapfrogging done there hardly has anything to do with human rights I guess, so I'd say the poster above has a really bold claim here

It's not an unusual claim: Freedom breeds innovation - people are not only free to think for themselves, to ignore the orthodoxy and established power, but they are raised and encouraged to do it and admired for it (to a degree). I think it's accurate to say that all the wealthiest (per capita) economies in history - i.e., the wealthiest economies over the last ten years - are in free societies.

Your last point might be true, but it doesn't necessarily imply causality of freedom -> wealth.
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