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When I would get that response, I would ask for the person's unlocked phone, and said that I would be going through the browsing history, photos, and text messa

When I would get that response, I would ask for the person's unlocked phone, and said that I would be going through the browsing history, photos, and text messages on their phone. Some people get it after that. Otherwise, I would see them makes some entertaining mental gymnastics to convince themselves that they still did not see the problem with electronic surveillance.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
This doesn't work with a lot of people. Namely, it doesn't work with someone who has never been part of an outgroup and lives a completely harmless, mainstream life - or feels they do. They truly don't feel like they have anything to hide. They may recognize that someone who is, say, into kink or LGBTQ might be more hesitant to do so, but they haven't lived it. There are probably millions of Americans who would, without hesitation, hand their unlocked phone to their pastor or a police officer. Your "hand me your unlocked phone" exercise won't really work.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- scarecrowbob 4y ago
  This matches my experience. For a uniquely interesting spin on this, you might look at the case of Doug Jensen. After participating in the January 6th events, he willingly went for an interview with the FBI and then gave them his phone and his passwords so they could look. To me, that seems emblematic of a person who has never in their life been in a outgroup. The lack of awareness it would take to do that is astounding, but worth paying attention to; there are plenty of folks in the US who have never actually been on the receiving end of state power. As such they have no way of discerning what that power looks like, much less an appreciation for the real effects of it's use on themselves.
  - mwint 4y ago
    For myself, I’d never been on the receiving end of state power until Covid. It does, without a doubt, change how you think about politics, government, etc.
    - rnk 4y ago
      You never had vaccination requirements in your life? If you were in the US, there were endless vaccination requirements. If you were wanting to do sports, you had to have a physical. You had to take a driver's license test to drive. Since the 1970s in the us most people were not impacted by health challenges where they had to do anything, maybe with the exception of aids. I never had to think about getting a vaccination or a health issue that might affect me, I always got my shots for school, never thought about it. I think the covid vaccination was the first time a lot of adults had to think about a vaccination and there was a lot of pressure to get it (I'm in that category, I never gave vaccination a second thought, got a flu shot every year for example). People in my family who were engineers, always been vaccinated, even in the 50s knew some people with polio got influenced by the anti-vaxer world on facebook and started talking about the dark conspiracy and secret payoffs of us govt health workers. That was very sad to see.
      - mwint 4y ago
        > If you were in the US, there were endless vaccination requirements This isn't true, because I've lived here my whole life and experienced zero vaccine requirements since being so young I can't remember. Many that I or my parents chose to get, but those were by choice. This may be state-dependent.
        mrexroad 4y ago
        Did you attend public school, or participate in youth activities such as sports or scouting?
        mwint 4y ago
        Yes to all. Only vaccine requirements were all stuff I’d had many years ago, and none of those were developed in the previous 18 months. Though this is all somewhat irrelevant; the government didn’t mandate vaccines in most contexts. Coercion, yes, but not proper mandates. I’m thinking more of having my favorite businesses shut down, arbitrary restrictions that don’t make sense, government bodies ignoring clear law, etc. And I’m in a free state, compared to most others!
dijit 4y ago
I tried something like this and they said that I was not an impartial trusted third party like a police officer. To be perfectly fair to her, it is harder to become a police officer in the UK (3years of education), otherwise I would have applied at the local police station, some places in the USA have only 6 weeks of training.
- game_the0ry 4y ago
  > I tried something like this and they said that I was not an impartial trusted third party like a police officer. Send her a link to this article. Highlight this part: > "A former Louisville Metro Police Department officer used law enforcement technology as part of a scheme that involved hacking the Snapchat accounts of young women and using sexually explicit photos and videos they had taken to extort them, federal prosecutors said in court documents filed on Tuesday."
- shakezula 4y ago
  > they said that I was not an impartial trusted third party like a police officer. Some people live in an absolute fairytale.
- plasticchris 4y ago
  “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    In this day and age you don't need any lines at all; a cop just has to say "stop resisting".
- zzyzxd 4y ago
  "some random stranger in a remote datacenter going through some spinning disks" is too hard to correlate for average people. This is an invisible threat to them. If I give the person in the example a name and face, e.g. "Officer John Smith living next door and you talk to him everyday", they usually immediately become more vigilant. I imagine that if the covid droplets in the air are visible, we would have a much easier time convincing people to wear masks in the beginning of the pandemic.
glenstein 4y ago
It's fascinating how this whole other brain architecture clicks on, especially for how it reveals the arguments people are willing to make when all the ideas are just hypothetical.
firecall 4y ago
Demonstrating criminal association is a good one! For instance, you family and friends over. They use your wifi to access illegal content. The police now want to see everything about you that you ever did. they don’t need to ask. And being white and wealthy will only help you so far. Everyone is guilty of something. Make enough laws and we will all be guilty of prison time crimes!

KennyBlanken 4y ago

This doesn't work with a lot of people. Namely, it doesn't work with someone who has never been part of an outgroup and lives a completely harmless, mainstream life - or feels they do. They truly don't feel like they have anything to hide. They may recognize that someone who is, say, into kink or LGBTQ might be more hesitant to do so, but they haven't lived it. There are probably millions of Americans who would, without hesitation, hand their unlocked phone to their pastor or a police officer. Your "hand me your unlocked phone" exercise won't really work.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
scarecrowbob 4y ago
This matches my experience. For a uniquely interesting spin on this, you might look at the case of Doug Jensen. After participating in the January 6th events, he willingly went for an interview with the FBI and then gave them his phone and his passwords so they could look. To me, that seems emblematic of a person who has never in their life been in a outgroup. The lack of awareness it would take to do that is astounding, but worth paying attention to; there are plenty of folks in the US who have never actually been on the receiving end of state power. As such they have no way of discerning what that power looks like, much less an appreciation for the real effects of it's use on themselves.
- mwint 4y ago
  For myself, I’d never been on the receiving end of state power until Covid. It does, without a doubt, change how you think about politics, government, etc.
  - rnk 4y ago
    You never had vaccination requirements in your life? If you were in the US, there were endless vaccination requirements. If you were wanting to do sports, you had to have a physical. You had to take a driver's license test to drive. Since the 1970s in the us most people were not impacted by health challenges where they had to do anything, maybe with the exception of aids. I never had to think about getting a vaccination or a health issue that might affect me, I always got my shots for school, never thought about it. I think the covid vaccination was the first time a lot of adults had to think about a vaccination and there was a lot of pressure to get it (I'm in that category, I never gave vaccination a second thought, got a flu shot every year for example). People in my family who were engineers, always been vaccinated, even in the 50s knew some people with polio got influenced by the anti-vaxer world on facebook and started talking about the dark conspiracy and secret payoffs of us govt health workers. That was very sad to see.
    - mwint 4y ago
      > If you were in the US, there were endless vaccination requirements This isn't true, because I've lived here my whole life and experienced zero vaccine requirements since being so young I can't remember. Many that I or my parents chose to get, but those were by choice. This may be state-dependent.
      - mrexroad 4y ago
        Did you attend public school, or participate in youth activities such as sports or scouting?
        mwint 4y ago
        Yes to all. Only vaccine requirements were all stuff I’d had many years ago, and none of those were developed in the previous 18 months. Though this is all somewhat irrelevant; the government didn’t mandate vaccines in most contexts. Coercion, yes, but not proper mandates. I’m thinking more of having my favorite businesses shut down, arbitrary restrictions that don’t make sense, government bodies ignoring clear law, etc. And I’m in a free state, compared to most others!

dijit 4y ago

I tried something like this and they said that I was not an impartial trusted third party like a police officer. To be perfectly fair to her, it is harder to become a police officer in the UK (3years of education), otherwise I would have applied at the local police station, some places in the USA have only 6 weeks of training.

game_the0ry 4y ago
> I tried something like this and they said that I was not an impartial trusted third party like a police officer. Send her a link to this article. Highlight this part: > "A former Louisville Metro Police Department officer used law enforcement technology as part of a scheme that involved hacking the Snapchat accounts of young women and using sexually explicit photos and videos they had taken to extort them, federal prosecutors said in court documents filed on Tuesday."
shakezula 4y ago
> they said that I was not an impartial trusted third party like a police officer. Some people live in an absolute fairytale.
plasticchris 4y ago
“If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
- yellowapple 4y ago
  In this day and age you don't need any lines at all; a cop just has to say "stop resisting".
zzyzxd 4y ago
"some random stranger in a remote datacenter going through some spinning disks" is too hard to correlate for average people. This is an invisible threat to them. If I give the person in the example a name and face, e.g. "Officer John Smith living next door and you talk to him everyday", they usually immediately become more vigilant. I imagine that if the covid droplets in the air are visible, we would have a much easier time convincing people to wear masks in the beginning of the pandemic.

glenstein 4y ago

It's fascinating how this whole other brain architecture clicks on, especially for how it reveals the arguments people are willing to make when all the ideas are just hypothetical.

firecall 4y ago

Demonstrating criminal association is a good one! For instance, you family and friends over. They use your wifi to access illegal content. The police now want to see everything about you that you ever did. they don’t need to ask. And being white and wealthy will only help you so far. Everyone is guilty of something. Make enough laws and we will all be guilty of prison time crimes!