8 ms·

Crime will be the price that a free society pays. We need a certain tolerance of petty crime if we are going to truest be free.

ketzo 6y ago
That sounded sort of vacuous to me at first, but I think it’s a genuinely good point. I think human nature or whatever you want to call it is always going to mean that some number of people don’t follow The Rules to some degree, and that achieving 100% perfect rule adherence should not necessarily be the one and only goal of society.
- psychoslave 6y ago
  What rules? It's not like any government out there rises every single citizen or has into a fully qualified lawyer. People generally go with the foggy model of what seem the most in accordance with values they lously acquired by observing there own neighborhood.
rbecker 6y ago
What you have to tolerate in non-free societies can be far worse. It's just not called "crime". History is full of examples.
sneak 6y ago
This comment seems to ignore crimes committed by the government in bulk against the people. Surveillance societies have a lot more crime, it’s just carried out by a single set of uniformed groups.
- t-writescode 6y ago
  But they're not called "crimes" when they're made into laws and obligations.
colechristensen 6y ago
"Give me freedom or give me death"
afwe 6y ago
You will have a hard time convincing people of this. Myself I don't agree. But I can see how it is appealing to privileged people who don't have to suffer petty crime themselves.
- LocalH 6y ago
  How do you propose we eradicate petty crime while still maintaining the most amount of liberty?
  - zo1 6y ago
    Large scale, automated and auditable camera surveillance coupled with AI, linked directly to a crime + mugshot database. Do it right, and no liberty or privacy is lost for honest individuals. While petty thieves will lose liberty, of course.
    - LocalH 6y ago
      How do you propose this system be hardened against abuse? How do you consider that “no privacy is lost for honest individuals” when they’re on camera everywhere they go?
      - zo1 6y ago
        I think a good place to start would be to ask what bad/detrimental thing are you referring to when you say we'd lose "privacy" if we're on camera everywhere we go? Then we can address each one. Otherwise I'm just shooting in the dark and playing argument bingo.
zo1 6y ago
I don't accept that, and I won't accept it for my community. I live in a crime-ridden country. Here, we as honest citizens are building fences, walls, gated-communities, electric fencing, metal bars around our doors and windows, hiring private security, etc to combat the crime that the wider society is tacitly tolerating. People want security, and we're willing to forego things such as "privacy" in return for that. Not all of us put "privacy" on a gigantic pedestal as some others do.
- BLKNSLVR 6y ago
  The kind of crime that fences, walls, gated communities, electric fencing, and metal bars serve to protect against are the kinds of crimes that are deprioritised by corrupt governments who would rather have their law enforcement look into monitoring and suppressing political dissent because that's more of a direct threat to their power. If a society is willing to give up their privacy then governments can be lazier because they'll be more aware of their direct threats, therefore they need less awareness of actual societal problems, which are indirect threats.
- LocalH 6y ago
  So what happens if the security is successful, and the level of crime decreases substantially, and now the government uses its newfound powers of surveillance against the law-abiding populace?
  - zo1 6y ago
    If we think that is a possibility then I'd say we have bigger problems with government power, democracy and voting in general. And instead of using "privacy" as a proxy for those concerns, we should rather address the actual issue and concerns we have with the power we give to individuals without accountability and oversight. Like why isn't the debate here revolving around the suggestion that we need to have processes, and super-secure, open and cryptographically secure audit of all government actions so that government "privacy" violations are immediately caught and addressed? Instead, we're asking government to solve some arbitrary problem called "privacy" because we think it'll prevent potential government abuse in the future?
refurb 6y ago
Is the use of this backdoor targeting "petty crime"?

ketzo 6y ago

That sounded sort of vacuous to me at first, but I think it’s a genuinely good point. I think human nature or whatever you want to call it is always going to mean that some number of people don’t follow The Rules to some degree, and that achieving 100% perfect rule adherence should not necessarily be the one and only goal of society.

psychoslave 6y ago
What rules? It's not like any government out there rises every single citizen or has into a fully qualified lawyer. People generally go with the foggy model of what seem the most in accordance with values they lously acquired by observing there own neighborhood.

rbecker 6y ago

What you have to tolerate in non-free societies can be far worse. It's just not called "crime". History is full of examples.

sneak 6y ago

This comment seems to ignore crimes committed by the government in bulk against the people. Surveillance societies have a lot more crime, it’s just carried out by a single set of uniformed groups.

t-writescode 6y ago
But they're not called "crimes" when they're made into laws and obligations.

colechristensen 6y ago

"Give me freedom or give me death"

afwe 6y ago

You will have a hard time convincing people of this. Myself I don't agree. But I can see how it is appealing to privileged people who don't have to suffer petty crime themselves.

LocalH 6y ago
How do you propose we eradicate petty crime while still maintaining the most amount of liberty?
- zo1 6y ago
  Large scale, automated and auditable camera surveillance coupled with AI, linked directly to a crime + mugshot database. Do it right, and no liberty or privacy is lost for honest individuals. While petty thieves will lose liberty, of course.
  - LocalH 6y ago
    How do you propose this system be hardened against abuse? How do you consider that “no privacy is lost for honest individuals” when they’re on camera everywhere they go?
    - zo1 6y ago
      I think a good place to start would be to ask what bad/detrimental thing are you referring to when you say we'd lose "privacy" if we're on camera everywhere we go? Then we can address each one. Otherwise I'm just shooting in the dark and playing argument bingo.

zo1 6y ago

I don't accept that, and I won't accept it for my community. I live in a crime-ridden country. Here, we as honest citizens are building fences, walls, gated-communities, electric fencing, metal bars around our doors and windows, hiring private security, etc to combat the crime that the wider society is tacitly tolerating. People want security, and we're willing to forego things such as "privacy" in return for that. Not all of us put "privacy" on a gigantic pedestal as some others do.

BLKNSLVR 6y ago
The kind of crime that fences, walls, gated communities, electric fencing, and metal bars serve to protect against are the kinds of crimes that are deprioritised by corrupt governments who would rather have their law enforcement look into monitoring and suppressing political dissent because that's more of a direct threat to their power. If a society is willing to give up their privacy then governments can be lazier because they'll be more aware of their direct threats, therefore they need less awareness of actual societal problems, which are indirect threats.
LocalH 6y ago
So what happens if the security is successful, and the level of crime decreases substantially, and now the government uses its newfound powers of surveillance against the law-abiding populace?
- zo1 6y ago
  If we think that is a possibility then I'd say we have bigger problems with government power, democracy and voting in general. And instead of using "privacy" as a proxy for those concerns, we should rather address the actual issue and concerns we have with the power we give to individuals without accountability and oversight. Like why isn't the debate here revolving around the suggestion that we need to have processes, and super-secure, open and cryptographically secure audit of all government actions so that government "privacy" violations are immediately caught and addressed? Instead, we're asking government to solve some arbitrary problem called "privacy" because we think it'll prevent potential government abuse in the future?

refurb 6y ago

Is the use of this backdoor targeting "petty crime"?