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A startup is deploying armed bodyguards to NYC
- sbf90 4y agotheir video is kind of chilling https://twitter.com/radiusNYC/status/1621578982725386240/video/1 https://twitter.com/radiusNYC/status/1621578982725386240/vid...
- corporate_law 4y agois this legal?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- shadowgovt 4y agoMore or less. There's no law against paying intimidating people to stand in a particular place. That's what clubs do with bouncers. And they have no more authority to use violence than any other citizen.
- User23 4y agoIn states like NY though they can have a considerably easier time getting carry permits since they can argue it’s with cause better than a random private citizen. Also the obvious thing to do is offer your services for free to judges and prosecutors. The dark cyberpunk future is on its way and inevitable barring a total collapse.
- wrycoder 4y agoThere is theory, and there is practice.
- throwaway933424 4y agoDepends on what they do... I was walking in Las Vegas and private security started following me in a vehicle. I ignored them and kept walking. They followed me for several blocks, driving very slowly right behind, and occasionally severing at me. I recorded them and called 911. The police showed up right away. The police had a long chat with the private security about public spaces and intimidation.
- ElfinTrousers 4y agoMarketing? Yes, it's a little shady but usually legal. Your mother is probably still not proud though.
- giuliomagnifico 4y ago> Meet your new private army. “what could possibly go wrong?”
- bfeynman 4y agoI think this is a joke or something a la MSCHF, their spokesperson is the Gigachad lol.
- corporate_law 4y agogood choice of spokesperson but MSCHF always takes cred for their things
- stirfish 4y agoTheir COO is the Smoking Man from the X-Files and their Chief Systems Engineer is the Slenderman
- whythre 4y agoI feel safer already
- magic_hamster 4y agoI tend to agree that it's a joke (or some marketing ploy) simply because this service makes zero sense. Usually in security you need multiple people to guard one person of interest. This "start-up" suggests the exact opposite, one person guarding multiple subjects, with a total of 10,000 persons of interest around the city. Right. You have to give them credit for the amount of work they put into the presentation though - this makes me think it's more of a marketing stunt than some college student screwing around. Edit: Okay, just clicked the Team page and it's beyond any doubt a gag, I bet the reveal will happen soon.
- MasterScrat 4y agoThat and the fact they provide "zombie mode" as a feature
- throwaway020623 4y agoAre we sure this is not a marketing stunt for a new movie or game? It just looks so over the top that it's hard to believe it is real
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago$20 on this.
- blairbeckwith 4y agoAnyone taking this seriously is very gullible. Whole thing is laughable, stock photography, "I am very badass" language. Submitted by a new user.
- dilyevsky 4y agoI mean the gigachad meme spokesperson is kind of a giveaway
- ralmidani 4y ago“Blackwater, please meet Uber.” It’s hard to imagine anyone saying this without irony.
- mrtksn 4y agoGigachad, references to GTA5 etc. and the website looks like from Hitman. Who is the clientele? Rich millennials? This must be some kind of gerilla marketing for something.
- CabSauce 4y agoI think it's satire? But hard to tell.
- nicodjimenez 4y ago"Lethal, but mostly peaceful mercenaries." This is some elite level trolling!
- Trias11 4y agoMostly peaceful mercenaries to properly handle mostly peaceful protesters.
- rossdavidh 4y agoIt's not so much that this business is a bad sign, as for all I know it's a hoax/PR stunt. It's the fact that it is totally believable t hat it could be real, that is a bad sign.
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoIt MUST be fake -they are using the infamous "Gigachad" as their spokesperson mascot.
- cinntaile 4y agoIt's well made but the intent is clearly satire. I don't see how anyone would believe this is real.
- brazzy 4y agoPoe's Law.
- Manjuuu 4y agoVery funny, laughed at the gigachad, would be a great idea for a videogame. For reality, we are still a few decades too early.
- ralmidani 4y agoThe account “corporate_law” was started approximately 2 minutes before posting.
- bell-cot 4y agoLook at their numbers: "1000 elite bodyguards operating 24/7/365 across key areas of the city...", they say they're only accepting 10,000 clients, and pricing starts at $99/month ("basic") or $499/month ("elite"). Either their uber-elite agents are being vastly oversold, or the arithmetic of their actual revenue sources (and how they expect to meet payroll each month) is worth examining. (Yes, or they aren't real after all.)
- lp4vn 4y agoIf the gigachad weren't shirtless, it would be 100% credible.
- sbf90 4y agofeel better now https://twitter.com/radiusNYC/status/1622615163638513664?s=20&t=mfX4r68lQJEg1i6eU5oHmA https://twitter.com/radiusNYC/status/1622615163638513664?s=2...
- giancarlostoro 4y agoTheir manifesto is something else: https://www.radius.nyc/manifesto https://www.radius.nyc/manifesto
- ElfinTrousers 4y agoI was thinking this was a marketing stunt, but after reading the manifesto, I'm thinking possibly left-wing trolls.
- giancarlostoro 4y agoThis line in particular: As long as you’re on our "GRID" there’s a mean motherfucker cum RADIUS agent no more than fifty feet away, watching for signs of trouble,... Near the bottom, the fact that it even says "cum" lol
- ElfinTrousers 4y agoRight and actually "cum" is a perfectly cromulent English word that they're using correctly here...except that today people would usually say "slash" instead due to the secondary meaning "cum" has picked up. English, because who wants logic.
- giancarlostoro 4y agoI tend to forget you can use that word in a normal way, too many memes and rarely seeing it used that way except in like movies and shows, and my brain assumes troll when I see it.
- corporate_law 4y agoaristocratic
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
- malcolmgreaves 4y agoThis is a great art project.
- jsonne 4y agoI think it was Antonio Garcia Martinez where I read some content he made that drew a bunch of parallels to the US as very similar to LATAM in a lot of ways. I was fortunate enough to spend some time doing the digital nomad thing in Panama and personal security is way more explicit in places like that. Barbed wire around houses, big security systems, armored vehicles, etc. etc. because people didn't particularly trust the government to take great care of them. I some of these things happening in the US and its a bit concerning. I often and harshly criticize the police but they have a lot more accountability than a private security detail does. Feels like as a society we are making decisions taking us down a path of low trust and more violence. I don't pretend to know the answer though.
- CydeWeys 4y agoThe linked website isn't real. NYC is very safe and doesn't remotely need this level for security for 99.9999% of people.
- jsonne 4y agoI'm aware this is a joke and also am aware that NYC is largely safe. It clearly struck a nerve however and I think thats for a reason which is things are heading that way generally.
- corporate_law 4y agowho says this is a joke?
- CydeWeys 4y agoWell "joke" may not exactly be the right word since it's not actually funny, so how about "satire"? The point is, it's definitely not REAL.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 4y ago
- ekanes 4y agoThis is interesting, and I'm not sure if it's good or bad for society. Bad if they only protect wealthy paying clients (most likely scenario), but good if they protect opportunistically, and/or also involve the police. The business model seems to be based on "zone" coverage, but the question will be how effective this is when actual situations take place. They're either there or they're not. It's unlikely to have an "SLA" in terms of response time in minutes since they have a flat monthly fee, while supporting swings in demand like New Years vs a normal day. My guess is the profitability of this rests on the inability of users to see how many staff are actually around. They could have 20 people on-duty and no-one would be the wiser. "Needed us? Sorry, unlucky on that one." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Super interesting while being mildly dystopian.
- htag 4y agoI love that the header "hidden in plain sight" has a photo of a person with an ear bud with a coiled phone wire heading into his jacket. It's 2023. You'd be more hidden in plain sight with a pair of headphones picked up from the Apple Store.
- shmatt 4y agoThis doesn't really make any sense to anyone actually living in NYC They don't really explain how they are guarding you and not the 79 other strangers on the block or your subway car Will an armed ex-military person confront every panhandler talking sh* on the subway? Will they first yell "IS ANYONE IN THIS CAR A PAYING MEMBER OF RADIUS? PLEASE SHOW ME YOUR MEMBERSHIP CARD AND I WILL MOVE THE DIRTY PANHANDLER AWAY FROM YOU" All of the explanations are about how they are patrolling all subway lines and 24 neighborhoods, but no mention of how you as a member have better protection than the person next to you Other than that, its a smart idea because there is virtually no crime in these neighborhoods, just hysteria. So i'm sure they've figured their guards won't have to actually do anything
- kylecazar 4y agoWhole lot could go wrong if this is legit.
- Zigurd 4y agoThis is the more-dystopian form of renting an exotic car for your crypto conference red carpet walk.
- neilv 4y agoIf people are going to upvote this obvious joke, can we get the title edited not to mislead?
- suiiii 4y agozombie mode sounds intriguing
- meheleventyone 4y agoPeak LARPing.
- antihero 4y agoSo the Guardian Angels but they only help rich people?
- gesman 4y agoOr allow concealed carry and stand their ground for responsible citizens to protect their lives. Problem solved.
- digitailor 4y agoWhile there’s undoubtedly demand for Blackwater meets Uber in the nouveau riche set, I don't think this goes far enough in securing the arriviste’s perimeter. How can I be sure my Gigachad operatives aren’t also being hired by my many opponents and detractors? How can the same foreign aristocrat who is after me be using the same Gigachads as me on a gig-work basis?? To be fair, that does already happen, and that’s why I have Gigachads watching my Gigachads. My own Gigachads are sworn enemies of my opponent’s Gigachads, and STILL, they are constantly selling each other out, often over jewelry or strangely-chambered boutique firearms. I think this is just another bunch of dilettante college kids I don't trust with my perimeter.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- linux_devil 4y agowww.56secure.com A very similar service has existed in India for the past two years
- TradingPlaces 4y agoAs someone who grew up in NYC in the 1970s and 1980s when the mob ran the city, this type of stuff is hilarious to me.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoHow much longer until we have Bubrclaves with their own private police forces ?
- ineedasername 4y agoWow, what FUD scaremongering: >murder rates are up 50% Overall, multiple sources I found indicated they're up 30% (yeah, still not good at all, but it still means the startup is overstating the relative rate increase by 40%) And for NYC itself where the startup is focused, the murder rate is now on the decline [1] And the whole thing, presentation style etc., seem so over the top that I wonder if it's satire or some type of attempt to get viral attention for a product/service yet to be revealed but a bit different than the private-security-as-a-service presented here. [1] https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00071/nypd-citywide-crime-statistics-december-2022 https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p00071/nypd-citywide-crim...
- mgarfias 4y agoAnyone immediately think of Stephenson’s Enforcers from snow crash?