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Well, I wrote the software, not the article. It's a catchy headline sure, and the apps are called Cop Recorder, which a lot of people see as anti-police. But, t

by Mizza 15y ago

Well, I wrote the software, not the article. It's a catchy headline sure, and the apps are called Cop Recorder, which a lot of people see as anti-police. But, there are lots of cops who use the software too. We are not an anti-police project, we are a pro-data project! There are good police and bad police, and we publish recordings of both.

andrewcooke 15y ago
ok, so that concerns me, because i am not convinced that "more data" is a good thing. more surveillance in general is, it seems to me, going to help those with power rather than those without - they have more resources, for example. what i thought was good about your app, from this article, was that it was intended for the underdog - that something about the process to combine data, say, was intended to provide a counterbalance to the abuse of police power. but now you're saying you're neutral about it. that you're as happy for it to be used by the police against others, as for others to use it against the police. doesn't that mean that you're likely making things worse? and what about other morally questionable areas? mob-justice, for example. what are you going to do if a bunch of people start pooling observations of someone they are calling, say, a paedophile, when there's no conviction against them? or gays? or people of one race or another, asserting that they commit more crime...? just arguing that "more data is good" seems horribly naive. data a tool that can be abused in many ways. if you're choosing how to shape that force, and choosing well, great, but if you're going to ignore the moral responsibility that comes with the data, what makes you think you are helping?
- ldar15 15y ago
  Now imagine a world where anyone could enter a gps coordinate and height and see the activity there, at anytime in the past. You think we'd have TARP? You think we'd be at war in afghanistan? You think we'd have priests fucking children? Lynchings? Drunk driving? Many think this would be a dystopian future that forces everyone to conform. I believe that if all those people who only pretend to conform were actually required to conform, we'd suddenly see a great debate on what "normal" should actually be. Asimov wrote a story about this, and seemed to suggest that his view was that the end of privacy would be a bad thing (but maybe I read it wrong). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past
  - watmough 15y ago
    Clarke and Baxter also take this on in a great book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days
  - andrewcooke 15y ago
    [edit: i was wrong; it wasn't bradbury, i'm remembering the asimov work you mention - an excellent story, i agree] but it ignores the existing power structure. everyone knows that banks screwed up - but who is in jail? same thing goes here: it won't be an equaliser; only the little people will be punished. most people won't be using their viewers to avoid a war, they will be watching infotainment on 3d tv. if you don't explicitly challenge the existing power structure you implicitly strengthen it.

by Mizza 15y ago

andrewcooke 15y ago

ok, so that concerns me, because i am not convinced that "more data" is a good thing. more surveillance in general is, it seems to me, going to help those with power rather than those without - they have more resources, for example. what i thought was good about your app, from this article, was that it was intended for the underdog - that something about the process to combine data, say, was intended to provide a counterbalance to the abuse of police power. but now you're saying you're neutral about it. that you're as happy for it to be used by the police against others, as for others to use it against the police. doesn't that mean that you're likely making things worse? and what about other morally questionable areas? mob-justice, for example. what are you going to do if a bunch of people start pooling observations of someone they are calling, say, a paedophile, when there's no conviction against them? or gays? or people of one race or another, asserting that they commit more crime...? just arguing that "more data is good" seems horribly naive. data a tool that can be abused in many ways. if you're choosing how to shape that force, and choosing well, great, but if you're going to ignore the moral responsibility that comes with the data, what makes you think you are helping?

ldar15 15y ago
Now imagine a world where anyone could enter a gps coordinate and height and see the activity there, at anytime in the past. You think we'd have TARP? You think we'd be at war in afghanistan? You think we'd have priests fucking children? Lynchings? Drunk driving? Many think this would be a dystopian future that forces everyone to conform. I believe that if all those people who only pretend to conform were actually required to conform, we'd suddenly see a great debate on what "normal" should actually be. Asimov wrote a story about this, and seemed to suggest that his view was that the end of privacy would be a bad thing (but maybe I read it wrong). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past
- watmough 15y ago
  Clarke and Baxter also take this on in a great book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days
- andrewcooke 15y ago
  [edit: i was wrong; it wasn't bradbury, i'm remembering the asimov work you mention - an excellent story, i agree] but it ignores the existing power structure. everyone knows that banks screwed up - but who is in jail? same thing goes here: it won't be an equaliser; only the little people will be punished. most people won't be using their viewers to avoid a war, they will be watching infotainment on 3d tv. if you don't explicitly challenge the existing power structure you implicitly strengthen it.