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Sadly, you should disabuse yourself of the notion that our government will only use these powers in our best interest by looking at COINTELPRO, manufactured evi

Sadly, you should disabuse yourself of the notion that our government will only use these powers in our best interest by looking at COINTELPRO, manufactured evidence for invading Iraq, mass incarceration based on nonviolent crimes, surveilling and prosecuting rape victims who live in the wrong jurisdictions for seeking abortions, police treatment of people who speak out against them (they'll have access, too,) the red scare, etc. etc. etc. And that's entirely ignoring what we may be subject to by other governments. Even the increasing polarity between partisan political entities is concerning. If our country is run by someone comfortable with encouraging their supporters to violently put down opposition, do you want them supported by agencies that have access to this stuff? If you are, should everybody else have to be? One way I gauge where we are is to compare it to what people previously considered problematic. We've witnessed a tectonic shift in the overton window for reasonable surveillance-- each incremental change is presented as a reasonable, prudent step that a preponderance of people agree is beneficial. However, if you compiled the changes that have taken place and presented to someone from 1984, for example, they'd be understandably shocked. For people that have the correct ideas about what to believe, what to say, what to do, and how to do it according to everyone from their municipal jurisdictions to the federal government and all of it's arms, it's probably not a problem. Can we accept the government installing machinery to squash everybody else? Speeding and red light camera tickets are one thing-- they selectively capture stills of people who have likely committed a crime. Camera networks that track all cars movement by recording license plate sightings are more representative of what the future looks like. Think I'm being paranoid? It's already implemented: https://turnto10.com/news/local/providence-police-department-crime-statistics-automated-license-plate-readers-cameras-rhode-island-december-14-2022 https://turnto10.com/news/local/providence-police-department... Edit: again, if you're going to downvote me, surely you're capable of articulating your opposition in a comment, no?

nox101 3y ago
I didn't downvote you but if I was to guess. It's not clear what your idea is. A bad government will be bad, period. Surveillance or none. The solution is not therefore zero government. I don't think people from 1984 would be shocked at all. In fact I think the further you go back, the more surveillance. Or at least in thinking about "small towns" where everyone watches everyone else and the police know everyone in the town, people accepted that everyone knew what you were up to. As another person mentioned, people need be safe from crime. Crime has victims and those victims suffer. If your car is stolen you can't get to work and you have to replace the car. If a traffic violator crashes into you again, you can't get to work, and you have to replace your car, and you have to pay medical bills to recover, and you might be dead. Even the non-victims suffer indirectly from higher prices (to cover the crime) and higher insurance (to cover the crime). There's a balance and right now, at least in SF and LA, it seems to have shifted to "unsafe". Some amount of surveillance seems like a possible solution. As a first step, I think I'd like people to be able to send in video of infractions and have them prosecuted.
- chefandy 3y ago
  > A bad government will be bad, period. That's a wildly black-and-white perspective on an insanely complex topic. What government action could you not pretend to justify using that logic? Do you think any government actually sees themselves as a "bad" government? Do you think they and their socially dominant classes don't justify their actions by pointing out the good parts and dismissing the bad parts and making patronizing statements about how even if individual people get screwed, it's justified because the system on a whole "works?" That they don't have perceived enemies that they consider the bad guys which they can juxtapose themselves with to pretend like they're the good guys? Do you think that all of this either 100% does or 100% doesn't apply to governments? That it 100% does not apply to ours? > Or at least in thinking about "small towns" where everyone watches everyone else and the police know everyone in the town, people accepted that everyone knew what you were up to. Small community awareness among people who actually know each other is completely different from mass cataloging of the general public's ostensibly legal actions with practically no limits on its use or stewardship. I really don't understand how anybody wouldn't think so. Extrapolating the boundaries you set for your small community of neighbors and family, even if there are police among them, to federal police, intelligence agencies, and military in an astonishingly powerful country of 330 million people is a mindbogglingly strange take. > Crime has victims and those victims suffer. If your car is stolen you can't get to work and you have to replace the car. If a traffic violator crashes into you again, you can't get to work, and you have to replace your car, and you have to pay medical bills to recover, and you might be dead. Even the non-victims suffer indirectly from higher prices (to cover the crime) and higher insurance (to cover the crime). Not only is that a straw man, it seems to be shaped like something else entirely. > There's a balance and right now, at least in SF and LA, it seems to have shifted to "unsafe". Some amount of surveillance seems like a possible solution. As a first step, I think I'd like people to be able to send in video of infractions and have them prosecuted. Look at historical crime rates. Sure, they might have crawled up since the pandemic, but that's barely broken the consistently downward stride we've had for a good 3 decades. Our crime rates are nowhere close to what we were in the early 90s. The only people that don't seem to realize that are Fox News pundits and Newsmax. In summary, sure: lots of things are very simple if you ignore context, pertinent details, and opposing evidence.

nox101 3y ago

I didn't downvote you but if I was to guess. It's not clear what your idea is. A bad government will be bad, period. Surveillance or none. The solution is not therefore zero government. I don't think people from 1984 would be shocked at all. In fact I think the further you go back, the more surveillance. Or at least in thinking about "small towns" where everyone watches everyone else and the police know everyone in the town, people accepted that everyone knew what you were up to. As another person mentioned, people need be safe from crime. Crime has victims and those victims suffer. If your car is stolen you can't get to work and you have to replace the car. If a traffic violator crashes into you again, you can't get to work, and you have to replace your car, and you have to pay medical bills to recover, and you might be dead. Even the non-victims suffer indirectly from higher prices (to cover the crime) and higher insurance (to cover the crime). There's a balance and right now, at least in SF and LA, it seems to have shifted to "unsafe". Some amount of surveillance seems like a possible solution. As a first step, I think I'd like people to be able to send in video of infractions and have them prosecuted.

chefandy 3y ago
> A bad government will be bad, period. That's a wildly black-and-white perspective on an insanely complex topic. What government action could you not pretend to justify using that logic? Do you think any government actually sees themselves as a "bad" government? Do you think they and their socially dominant classes don't justify their actions by pointing out the good parts and dismissing the bad parts and making patronizing statements about how even if individual people get screwed, it's justified because the system on a whole "works?" That they don't have perceived enemies that they consider the bad guys which they can juxtapose themselves with to pretend like they're the good guys? Do you think that all of this either 100% does or 100% doesn't apply to governments? That it 100% does not apply to ours? > Or at least in thinking about "small towns" where everyone watches everyone else and the police know everyone in the town, people accepted that everyone knew what you were up to. Small community awareness among people who actually know each other is completely different from mass cataloging of the general public's ostensibly legal actions with practically no limits on its use or stewardship. I really don't understand how anybody wouldn't think so. Extrapolating the boundaries you set for your small community of neighbors and family, even if there are police among them, to federal police, intelligence agencies, and military in an astonishingly powerful country of 330 million people is a mindbogglingly strange take. > Crime has victims and those victims suffer. If your car is stolen you can't get to work and you have to replace the car. If a traffic violator crashes into you again, you can't get to work, and you have to replace your car, and you have to pay medical bills to recover, and you might be dead. Even the non-victims suffer indirectly from higher prices (to cover the crime) and higher insurance (to cover the crime). Not only is that a straw man, it seems to be shaped like something else entirely. > There's a balance and right now, at least in SF and LA, it seems to have shifted to "unsafe". Some amount of surveillance seems like a possible solution. As a first step, I think I'd like people to be able to send in video of infractions and have them prosecuted. Look at historical crime rates. Sure, they might have crawled up since the pandemic, but that's barely broken the consistently downward stride we've had for a good 3 decades. Our crime rates are nowhere close to what we were in the early 90s. The only people that don't seem to realize that are Fox News pundits and Newsmax. In summary, sure: lots of things are very simple if you ignore context, pertinent details, and opposing evidence.