3 ms·

I think a good thought experiment to consider, in terms of defining what your own views are, is to consider that if every single person had a mandatory 24/7 upl

I think a good thought experiment to consider, in terms of defining what your own views are, is to consider that if every single person had a mandatory 24/7 uplinked camera on them with redundancies, then the number of unsolved crimes would rapidly approach zero. It would be essentially impossible to get away with crime, so the only crimes that would happen would be those of passion, ignorance, or the political elite who would certainly excuse themselves from such social obligations, as usual. But I definitely would not want to live in that world. And I think that's true for most people. It's kind of interesting too because there's some really nasty arguments one can make about this like, 'What, you'd rather see children kidnapped and even killed than consenting to surveillance that won't even be looked at unless you're under suspicion?' But it's quite disingenuous, because with any freedom there is always a cost, and that cost is often extreme. 40,000+ people die per year because of our freedom to drive, yet few would ever use that as an argument to prohibit driving.

plasticchris 1y ago
The trouble is, there would also be no unsolved thought crimes
- neuralRiot 1y ago
  Another problem is that “crime” is a very flexible term and when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Also the legal system specially in the US likes to equate convictions with solved cases which is not always the same.
red-iron-pine 1y ago
> 40,000+ people die per year because of our freedom to drive, yet few would ever use that as an argument to prohibit driving. that is a fantastic argument to force reduced driving and shows up in virtually all discussions about car safety and public transit.
charcircuit 1y ago
>And I think that's true for most people. I think it's the opposite. I think people would prefer the peace of mind of living in a high trust society. People like predictability and being able to trust people. I also think people would enjoy that laws that people pass are actually applied and we can efficiently apply the will of the people to the country. >with any freedom there is always a cost Laws ultimately would be what restrict your freedom, not the enforcement of them. I don't think freedom should rely on poor enforcement of laws.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  One of the biggest 'culture shocks' I had when first moving to Asia, that eventually I'd see in numerous places, is visiting a food court during business hours. There's people shoulder to shoulder, so everybody goes to claim a table before getting their food. They do this by leaving various things, including their purses, on tables while they went to go queue up to get some food. There wasn't a camera anywhere. That is a high trust society, and it's amazing. What you're describing here is the opposite of a high trust society - when you have a camera on every person for fear they might do something bad, it's a 0, if not negative, trust society. Your perceptions of other peoples' views are also off. Even with the current scope of government surveillance, 66% of Americans say that the potential risks outweigh the potential benefits. [1] And laws would not be what limit freedoms. Government and authority is not some abstract holistic entity. It's made up of people, like you and I. Would you feel comfortable with me being able to surveil every moment of your life? The difference between me and the person who would end up doing so is not this great gulf you might imagine. For instance Snowden revealed that NSA officers would regularly collect and trade sexually explicit media obtained from surveillance. [2] They'd also use their position to spy on their love interests to the point it gained it's own little sardonic moniker 'LOVEINT'. The people that would be looking through those cameras are just people. And the government leadership overseeing these groups would include those prone to go off to an island to screw minors, or more upstanding fellows like Eric Swalwell, cheating on his wife with a Chinese spy while serving on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that oversees the entire US intelligence apparatus, and would oversee this sort of surveillance. We're all just people, warts and all. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/11/15/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-about-privacy-surveillance-and-data-sharing/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/11/15/key-takea... [2] - https://time.com/3010649/nsa-sexually-explicit-photographs-snowden/ https://time.com/3010649/nsa-sexually-explicit-photographs-s...

plasticchris 1y ago

The trouble is, there would also be no unsolved thought crimes

neuralRiot 1y ago
Another problem is that “crime” is a very flexible term and when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Also the legal system specially in the US likes to equate convictions with solved cases which is not always the same.

red-iron-pine 1y ago

> 40,000+ people die per year because of our freedom to drive, yet few would ever use that as an argument to prohibit driving. that is a fantastic argument to force reduced driving and shows up in virtually all discussions about car safety and public transit.

charcircuit 1y ago

>And I think that's true for most people. I think it's the opposite. I think people would prefer the peace of mind of living in a high trust society. People like predictability and being able to trust people. I also think people would enjoy that laws that people pass are actually applied and we can efficiently apply the will of the people to the country. >with any freedom there is always a cost Laws ultimately would be what restrict your freedom, not the enforcement of them. I don't think freedom should rely on poor enforcement of laws.

somenameforme 1y ago
One of the biggest 'culture shocks' I had when first moving to Asia, that eventually I'd see in numerous places, is visiting a food court during business hours. There's people shoulder to shoulder, so everybody goes to claim a table before getting their food. They do this by leaving various things, including their purses, on tables while they went to go queue up to get some food. There wasn't a camera anywhere. That is a high trust society, and it's amazing. What you're describing here is the opposite of a high trust society - when you have a camera on every person for fear they might do something bad, it's a 0, if not negative, trust society. Your perceptions of other peoples' views are also off. Even with the current scope of government surveillance, 66% of Americans say that the potential risks outweigh the potential benefits. [1] And laws would not be what limit freedoms. Government and authority is not some abstract holistic entity. It's made up of people, like you and I. Would you feel comfortable with me being able to surveil every moment of your life? The difference between me and the person who would end up doing so is not this great gulf you might imagine. For instance Snowden revealed that NSA officers would regularly collect and trade sexually explicit media obtained from surveillance. [2] They'd also use their position to spy on their love interests to the point it gained it's own little sardonic moniker 'LOVEINT'. The people that would be looking through those cameras are just people. And the government leadership overseeing these groups would include those prone to go off to an island to screw minors, or more upstanding fellows like Eric Swalwell, cheating on his wife with a Chinese spy while serving on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that oversees the entire US intelligence apparatus, and would oversee this sort of surveillance. We're all just people, warts and all. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/11/15/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-about-privacy-surveillance-and-data-sharing/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/11/15/key-takea... [2] - https://time.com/3010649/nsa-sexually-explicit-photographs-snowden/ https://time.com/3010649/nsa-sexually-explicit-photographs-s...