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Reading this reminds me of this quote: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing

Reading this reminds me of this quote: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller and another darker vision: "For if you [the rulers] suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves [outlaws] and then punish them." Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), Utopia, Book 1 Here's an idea for a frighteningly ambitions startup: Kill the prison-industrial complex! How? Fight crime! It costs a lot of taxpayer money and social wealth to keep things the way they are. Ostensibly the goal is to keep people safe from criminals and reduce crime opportunities. A friend of mine was mugged on the street for his iPhone last night. He was stabbed in the leg when he fought back (mistake but he's ok thankfully). I wonder if a few high-res web-cams on the street would have kept the attackers at bay? How about a Peer-to-Peer police/surveillance state? Found these startup ideas tonight: idea: turn my webcam into a security cam [1] http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-turn-my-webcam-into-a-security-cam http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-turn-my-webcam-into-a-s... idea: millions of sensors / millions of surveys [2] http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-millions-of-sensors-millions-of-surveys http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-millions-of-sensors-mil...

icebraining 15y ago
If London is any example, cameras don't actually work that well: a study of London's widespread use of CCTV cameras, found that for every 1,000 cameras installed, only one crime has been solved. On top of that, when faced with a crime, the CCTV cameras are rarely that useful. The report found that CCTV cameras were used to catch just 8 out of 269 suspected robbers. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090827/0410406023.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090827/0410406023.shtml This is without mentioning the privacy aspects; I find it rather worrying how people seem to accept constant surveillance so easily.
rogerbinns 15y ago
> How about a Peer-to-Peer police/surveillance state? Britain has been doing the experiment for you and is generally regarded as the most surveilled western society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance#United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance#United_Kingdo... Sensationalist article by the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205607/Shock-figures-reveal-Britain-CCTV-camera-14-people--China.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205607/Shock-figure... Some articles on the resulting (in)effectiveness of having the cameras: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6082530/1000-CCTV-cameras-to-solve-just-one-crime-Met-Police-admits.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6082530/1000-CC... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/6083476/CCTV-cameras-If-they-do-not-stop-crime-or-catch-criminals-what-are-they-for.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/6083476/CC... http://www.library.ca.gov/CRB/97/05/crb97-005.pdf http://www.library.ca.gov/CRB/97/05/crb97-005.pdf (Warning: PDF)
- ig1 15y ago
  News paper reports aren't peer reviewed scientific research. How many journalists do you think even have a rigorous enough understanding of statistics to even begin to be able to answer these sort of questions ? Do you think before this data came out that the Telegraph or Daily Mail were pro-CCTV ? - or do you think that they'd already decided their position long before and were just looking for whatever data would back them up ?
  - rogerbinns 15y ago
    If you have good sources then show them. The wikipedia page sites sources. The Daily Mail article I described as a "sensationalist article". The first Telegraph article cites its source of data. The second Telegraph is a commentary piece with 106 comments from people giving a sampling of opinion with "comment" in the URL. And the final report is from the California State Library and shows its working. Better more rigourous sources would be nicer but we at least already have some that aren't particularly promising which seems counter intuitive. CCTV also comes at a huge cost, paid for by tax payers and hence determined by voters.
    - ig1 15y ago
      The problem with non-peer reviewed articles is that you don't know how they selected the data, etc. Scientific research requires you set your hypothesis before you get the results. Clearly this didn't happen in this case. Why did Telegraph chose to use this particular metric ("crimes solved using CCTV") rather than for instance "crime rate change as a result of CCTV" (which would take into account deterrence). Why did they choose to use total number of CCTV cameras rather than the number of active CCTV cameras ? One of the points of peer review is spot biases like this. I'm not saying that CCTV works (or that it doesn't) but newspapers or non-peer reviewed research often falls far below an acceptable standard for evidence.
ktizo 15y ago
puts on hippy hat Perhaps helping to create a society that is more personally fulfilling and with a greater degree of social equality and fairness might be a good place to focus. So everything from free local arts/education/tech facilities through to high quality affordable group legal insurance.

icebraining 15y ago

If London is any example, cameras don't actually work that well: a study of London's widespread use of CCTV cameras, found that for every 1,000 cameras installed, only one crime has been solved. On top of that, when faced with a crime, the CCTV cameras are rarely that useful. The report found that CCTV cameras were used to catch just 8 out of 269 suspected robbers. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090827/0410406023.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090827/0410406023.shtml This is without mentioning the privacy aspects; I find it rather worrying how people seem to accept constant surveillance so easily.

rogerbinns 15y ago

> How about a Peer-to-Peer police/surveillance state? Britain has been doing the experiment for you and is generally regarded as the most surveilled western society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance#United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance#United_Kingdo... Sensationalist article by the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205607/Shock-figures-reveal-Britain-CCTV-camera-14-people--China.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205607/Shock-figure... Some articles on the resulting (in)effectiveness of having the cameras: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6082530/1000-CCTV-cameras-to-solve-just-one-crime-Met-Police-admits.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/6082530/1000-CC... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/6083476/CCTV-cameras-If-they-do-not-stop-crime-or-catch-criminals-what-are-they-for.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/6083476/CC... http://www.library.ca.gov/CRB/97/05/crb97-005.pdf http://www.library.ca.gov/CRB/97/05/crb97-005.pdf (Warning: PDF)

ig1 15y ago
News paper reports aren't peer reviewed scientific research. How many journalists do you think even have a rigorous enough understanding of statistics to even begin to be able to answer these sort of questions ? Do you think before this data came out that the Telegraph or Daily Mail were pro-CCTV ? - or do you think that they'd already decided their position long before and were just looking for whatever data would back them up ?
- rogerbinns 15y ago
  If you have good sources then show them. The wikipedia page sites sources. The Daily Mail article I described as a "sensationalist article". The first Telegraph article cites its source of data. The second Telegraph is a commentary piece with 106 comments from people giving a sampling of opinion with "comment" in the URL. And the final report is from the California State Library and shows its working. Better more rigourous sources would be nicer but we at least already have some that aren't particularly promising which seems counter intuitive. CCTV also comes at a huge cost, paid for by tax payers and hence determined by voters.
  - ig1 15y ago
    The problem with non-peer reviewed articles is that you don't know how they selected the data, etc. Scientific research requires you set your hypothesis before you get the results. Clearly this didn't happen in this case. Why did Telegraph chose to use this particular metric ("crimes solved using CCTV") rather than for instance "crime rate change as a result of CCTV" (which would take into account deterrence). Why did they choose to use total number of CCTV cameras rather than the number of active CCTV cameras ? One of the points of peer review is spot biases like this. I'm not saying that CCTV works (or that it doesn't) but newspapers or non-peer reviewed research often falls far below an acceptable standard for evidence.

ktizo 15y ago

puts on hippy hat Perhaps helping to create a society that is more personally fulfilling and with a greater degree of social equality and fairness might be a good place to focus. So everything from free local arts/education/tech facilities through to high quality affordable group legal insurance.