4 ms·

Due process is mostly useful after the fact, when you have the opportunity, at great personal expense, to convince the DA, judge, and/or jury that the criminal

Due process is mostly useful after the fact, when you have the opportunity, at great personal expense, to convince the DA, judge, and/or jury that the criminal justice apparatus screwed up in charging you. Warrants are easily acquired, and you will be charged based on a far lower standard of evidence than the state must meet to convict you. While you can then avail yourself of due process, the deck is stacked against you — the cost to adequately defend yourself is astronomical. You’re likely to take a plea deal to avoid the expense and risk of a trial; an enormous number of innocent people take plea deals or are wrongfully convicted every single day. Better to keep the fox out of the hen house in the first place.

eternityforest 4y ago
Ideally, yes, it would definitely be best to not be exposed to the risk of prosecution for some data glitch. But you also have to look at the risk of getting fired because you missed an email if your self-hosted solution goes down, losing your wallet because you didn't have Tile tracking, extra risk of getting sick because you didn't get enough sleep while dealing with some last minute tech issue to make your more-private system work, getting lost because the open source app had worse data or compass calibration algorithms than Maps, getting money stolen because you used crypto that can't be reversed, etc. The current suite of nonprivate tech offers an insane amount of power, especially for those of us without a good memory or navigational skills. I guess it's the same issue with unions and protests, people who are one paycheck away from the streets won't risk a strike, because they'll lose everything by the time they get the benefits.
- 29083011397778 4y ago
  > The current suite of nonprivate tech offers an insane amount of power, especially for those of us without a good memory or navigational skills. Do you think relying on these tools has made your memory better (allowing you to wean yourself off them), or worse (creating a customer for life)? I firmly believe it creates a sort of learned helplessness in people, in the same way the commercial internet in general is bad for ones memory or attention span. Given how many people seem to believe Google Maps has gotten much more in-your-face (instead of doing its job and getting out of the way) over the last few years, but so few are willing to abandon it, I suspect I'm right: using the tools you find (and are!) so helpful creates a dependence on them.

eternityforest 4y ago

Ideally, yes, it would definitely be best to not be exposed to the risk of prosecution for some data glitch. But you also have to look at the risk of getting fired because you missed an email if your self-hosted solution goes down, losing your wallet because you didn't have Tile tracking, extra risk of getting sick because you didn't get enough sleep while dealing with some last minute tech issue to make your more-private system work, getting lost because the open source app had worse data or compass calibration algorithms than Maps, getting money stolen because you used crypto that can't be reversed, etc. The current suite of nonprivate tech offers an insane amount of power, especially for those of us without a good memory or navigational skills. I guess it's the same issue with unions and protests, people who are one paycheck away from the streets won't risk a strike, because they'll lose everything by the time they get the benefits.

29083011397778 4y ago
> The current suite of nonprivate tech offers an insane amount of power, especially for those of us without a good memory or navigational skills. Do you think relying on these tools has made your memory better (allowing you to wean yourself off them), or worse (creating a customer for life)? I firmly believe it creates a sort of learned helplessness in people, in the same way the commercial internet in general is bad for ones memory or attention span. Given how many people seem to believe Google Maps has gotten much more in-your-face (instead of doing its job and getting out of the way) over the last few years, but so few are willing to abandon it, I suspect I'm right: using the tools you find (and are!) so helpful creates a dependence on them.