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Does anyone else find it painfully ironic that the one CO cop said "You can't get a breath of fresh air in or out of that place without us knowing," [0], in lig

by kortex 10mo ago

Does anyone else find it painfully ironic that the one CO cop said "You can't get a breath of fresh air in or out of that place without us knowing," [0], in light of the George Floyd BLM rallying cry "I can't breathe!" and the common metaphor describing surveilance states as "suffocating"? Like what are we doing as a society? Stop trying to build the surveilance nexus from sci fi. I don't want to live in a zero-crime world [1]. It's not worth it. Safety third, there is always gonna be some risk. [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/flock-cameras-lead-colorado-police-wrong-suspect/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/flock-cameras-lead-col... [1] Edit to add: if this raises hackles, I encourage folks to think through what true zero crime (or maybe lets call it six-nines lawfulness) entails. If we had literal precrime, would that stop 99.9999% of crime? (hint: read the book/watch the movie)

tptacek 10mo ago
Fair warning that this is a deeply unpopular argument in municipal politics.
- therobots927 10mo ago
  That depends on the municipality and who decides to show up to meetings and make a big deal about it. If enough people get freaked out by these cameras it’s gonna cause real problems for elected officials who enable them.
  - tptacek 10mo ago
    I don't agree. I watched a concerted effort, involving a good deal of public comment (which: not a very effective tool for change; you have better tools in your arsenal), and vanishingly little of it took the "there's always going to be risk, crime isn't everything" tack. "This stuff doesn't work and causes more problems than it solves" is the effective answer, not this George Floyd stuff.
  - tlb 10mo ago
    The people who show up to town council meetings lean heavily to the side of security over liberty. The most obvious reason is that it's mostly retired homeowners with busybody personality types. Privacy and liberty advocates are unlikely to win in council meetings by sheer numbers. They get some leverage with campaign donations, especially recently that Bitcoin made a lot of such people rich.
    - mothballed 10mo ago
      I live in a very liberty minded county. The kind of place with no building codes and pretty much no police. All our cameras on county/municipal property were voted disabled. So the feds just put their flock cameras anywhere they had a little piece of federal property, and there is no way to vote those ones off. They have little patches that cover the highways and some main thoroughfares. It's everywhere.
    - therobots927 10mo ago
      This really depends on where you live. I have no doubt that on average you’re correct but a lot of those retired homeowners are pretty upset about how the feds are behaving recently and believe it or not when your material needs are met some people actually try to use their privilege to help those most likely to be victimized by the surveillance state
- fooqux 10mo ago
  I think that's kinda the point? If public servants funded by taxpayers don't like it, maybe they shouldn't be forcing it on the populace and breaking the forth amendment.
  - tptacek 10mo ago
    It's unpopular with residents. Residents do not have the attitude towards crime reflected in the comment I replied to. It's a very online thing to say.
    - kortex 10mo ago
      Yeah perhaps it's a bit inflammatory and terminally online of me to say. But it's true. Zero crime means zero crime. Minority report levels of surveilance and policing. What stance would you recommend? You're one of the folks here i recognize immediatedy and have a wealth of wisdom.
      - tptacek 10mo ago
        I would recommend not campaigning for public policy interventions on a premise of "some crime is OK".
        kortex 10mo ago
        You're 100% correct, and in fact I think you've touched upon partly explaining why fascism and authoritarianism is not just on the doorstep, it's got a foot in the door (without a warrant) and is asking^W trying to force its way in saying "it's just a quick search, you have nothing to hide cause you're not doing anything wrong, are you?" Realism isn't very palatable. Most folks want to stay in their little rat race lane and push their little skinner box lever and get their little variable interval algorithmic treato, and they are content with that. That's fine. It's just a shame they gotta tighten the noose around absolutely everyone else for a morsel of safety.
        10mo ago
cons0le 10mo ago
> I don't want to live in a zero-crime world That's about the worst, most inflammatory way possible to make your point. I agree with you 100%, but I am begging you to learn to frame your ideas better, in order to get people on your side. If you say that to any voters you will lose them instantly
- kortex 10mo ago
  Noted. But I'm trying to make people think about their cognitive dissonance. I'm not a politician. I'm a systems thinker. If someone can't reason their way through what a "zero-crime world" actually entails, I doubt my other ideas will get through to them. Zero crime. Zero. No speeding, no IP infringement, no "just this one time". Zero. That's also why I like asking "why stop there?" We've basically solved surveilance. It's an engineering problem. We have the capacity to track everyone (who does not make a VERY concerted effort to stealth) all the time, almost everywhere.
- artifaxx 10mo ago
  Didn't lose me, but point taken about gathering more support. How about: the costs of implementing a zero-crime world are far greater than the crime. Or attempting to trade freedom for safety will result in losing both.
  - kortex 10mo ago
    > the costs of implementing a zero-crime world are far greater than the crime. Exactly, I like this. Thanks for helping me rephrase.
- immibis 10mo ago
  Zero-crime means zero things that are banned ever becoming allowed. Things usually become allowed after they are illegal first, but people do them anyway, and then people wonder why we bother punishing them. Think of marijuana legalization. If nobody ever tried to illegally smoke weed, it would never be legalized because there would be no perceived benefit to doing so because it would be obvious that nobody wanted to do it.
jandrese 10mo ago
While true, I think you have missed the bigger story. If you talk with kids today their mentality is very different from kids of 20-30 years ago, and it's not the cop cameras all over the place. Nobody pays those much mind. It's the fact that damn near everybody over the age of 10 is carrying around a high quality camera all day long and the means to publish that footage worldwide in an instant. It doesn't help that people with an agenda sometimes call for other people to be "cancelled" over even a single video, even a 30 year old video from when they were freshmen in college, and are can be successful in getting that person's life ruined. We're living constantly in the scene from Fahrenheit 451 where the government asks everybody to go outside at once and report any suspicious activity. We have made it potentially not OK for kids to push boundaries or make mistakes.

by kortex 10mo ago

tptacek 10mo ago

Fair warning that this is a deeply unpopular argument in municipal politics.

therobots927 10mo ago
That depends on the municipality and who decides to show up to meetings and make a big deal about it. If enough people get freaked out by these cameras it’s gonna cause real problems for elected officials who enable them.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  I don't agree. I watched a concerted effort, involving a good deal of public comment (which: not a very effective tool for change; you have better tools in your arsenal), and vanishingly little of it took the "there's always going to be risk, crime isn't everything" tack. "This stuff doesn't work and causes more problems than it solves" is the effective answer, not this George Floyd stuff.
- tlb 10mo ago
  The people who show up to town council meetings lean heavily to the side of security over liberty. The most obvious reason is that it's mostly retired homeowners with busybody personality types. Privacy and liberty advocates are unlikely to win in council meetings by sheer numbers. They get some leverage with campaign donations, especially recently that Bitcoin made a lot of such people rich.
  - mothballed 10mo ago
    I live in a very liberty minded county. The kind of place with no building codes and pretty much no police. All our cameras on county/municipal property were voted disabled. So the feds just put their flock cameras anywhere they had a little piece of federal property, and there is no way to vote those ones off. They have little patches that cover the highways and some main thoroughfares. It's everywhere.
  - therobots927 10mo ago
    This really depends on where you live. I have no doubt that on average you’re correct but a lot of those retired homeowners are pretty upset about how the feds are behaving recently and believe it or not when your material needs are met some people actually try to use their privilege to help those most likely to be victimized by the surveillance state
fooqux 10mo ago
I think that's kinda the point? If public servants funded by taxpayers don't like it, maybe they shouldn't be forcing it on the populace and breaking the forth amendment.
- tptacek 10mo ago
  It's unpopular with residents. Residents do not have the attitude towards crime reflected in the comment I replied to. It's a very online thing to say.
  - kortex 10mo ago
    Yeah perhaps it's a bit inflammatory and terminally online of me to say. But it's true. Zero crime means zero crime. Minority report levels of surveilance and policing. What stance would you recommend? You're one of the folks here i recognize immediatedy and have a wealth of wisdom.
    - tptacek 10mo ago
      I would recommend not campaigning for public policy interventions on a premise of "some crime is OK".
      - kortex 10mo ago
        You're 100% correct, and in fact I think you've touched upon partly explaining why fascism and authoritarianism is not just on the doorstep, it's got a foot in the door (without a warrant) and is asking^W trying to force its way in saying "it's just a quick search, you have nothing to hide cause you're not doing anything wrong, are you?" Realism isn't very palatable. Most folks want to stay in their little rat race lane and push their little skinner box lever and get their little variable interval algorithmic treato, and they are content with that. That's fine. It's just a shame they gotta tighten the noose around absolutely everyone else for a morsel of safety.
        10mo ago

cons0le 10mo ago

> I don't want to live in a zero-crime world That's about the worst, most inflammatory way possible to make your point. I agree with you 100%, but I am begging you to learn to frame your ideas better, in order to get people on your side. If you say that to any voters you will lose them instantly

kortex 10mo ago
Noted. But I'm trying to make people think about their cognitive dissonance. I'm not a politician. I'm a systems thinker. If someone can't reason their way through what a "zero-crime world" actually entails, I doubt my other ideas will get through to them. Zero crime. Zero. No speeding, no IP infringement, no "just this one time". Zero. That's also why I like asking "why stop there?" We've basically solved surveilance. It's an engineering problem. We have the capacity to track everyone (who does not make a VERY concerted effort to stealth) all the time, almost everywhere.
artifaxx 10mo ago
Didn't lose me, but point taken about gathering more support. How about: the costs of implementing a zero-crime world are far greater than the crime. Or attempting to trade freedom for safety will result in losing both.
- kortex 10mo ago
  > the costs of implementing a zero-crime world are far greater than the crime. Exactly, I like this. Thanks for helping me rephrase.
immibis 10mo ago
Zero-crime means zero things that are banned ever becoming allowed. Things usually become allowed after they are illegal first, but people do them anyway, and then people wonder why we bother punishing them. Think of marijuana legalization. If nobody ever tried to illegally smoke weed, it would never be legalized because there would be no perceived benefit to doing so because it would be obvious that nobody wanted to do it.

jandrese 10mo ago

While true, I think you have missed the bigger story. If you talk with kids today their mentality is very different from kids of 20-30 years ago, and it's not the cop cameras all over the place. Nobody pays those much mind. It's the fact that damn near everybody over the age of 10 is carrying around a high quality camera all day long and the means to publish that footage worldwide in an instant. It doesn't help that people with an agenda sometimes call for other people to be "cancelled" over even a single video, even a 30 year old video from when they were freshmen in college, and are can be successful in getting that person's life ruined. We're living constantly in the scene from Fahrenheit 451 where the government asks everybody to go outside at once and report any suspicious activity. We have made it potentially not OK for kids to push boundaries or make mistakes.