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I would prefer they require face scanning vs. locking everything up. The police in my city don’t arrest people for shoplifting, or a range of petty crimes for t

I would prefer they require face scanning vs. locking everything up. The police in my city don’t arrest people for shoplifting, or a range of petty crimes for that matter. If you don’t like face scanning no one makes you shop there. When crime is unpunished and the police won’t do anything and the politicians don’t care, then businesses either have to adapt with new models or close

pempem 10mo ago
This is a false either/or. It has been proven and reproven that these claims of crime requiring store shutdowns were improperly put forward, without research, by a lobby. So much so that it was covered in mainstream media. December 2023: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-12-14/column-retail-lobby-confesses-it-lied-about-organized-shoplifting-rings https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-12-14/column-ret...
- monero-xmr 10mo ago
  I’m friends with the manager of my neighborhood convenience store and he is extremely angry that he has shoplifting caught on tape, trespassed people, begged and pleaded with the police but they won’t do anything. I’m not sure if you actually know anyone operating a retail store but it’s pretty grim in the blue cities
  - mcphage 10mo ago
    You really need to figure out how to get the police to do their job.
  - Terr_ 10mo ago
    The symptoms you're describing don't seem to match the proposed treatment. Police: "You've caught them red-handed on camera, but we're very busy and we don't care. Or perhaps this is a place where we're deliberately doing-nothing as a revenge or pressure-tactic against local politicians." Shopkeeper: "Ah, but this time I have the camera-footage and fancy biometrics of everyone in the store!" Police: "Oh, well why didn't you say so? That completely changes things, we're always willing to help out a fellow biometrics fan."
    - rurban 10mo ago
      Depends on the judges. If police cannot prove the crime in front of the judge, they wasted their time. With proper evidence it's not a waste of time anymore.
      - Eisenstein 10mo ago
        So the reason is that they are afraid of bringing case with witnesses and video footage to a judge because it might be too flimsy?
        monero-xmr 10mo ago
        Progressive prosecutors don’t care. Judges let repeat offenders out with a wrist slap. Demoralizes police - what’s the point of all the effort if they are back out on the street tomorrow?
        Eisenstein 10mo ago
        Sounds like you have a narrative that you are going to believe no matter what.
        monero-xmr 10mo ago
        My narrative is living here forever and seeing everything go to shit
        Eisenstein 10mo ago
        No, that's your experience. The narrative is that everything went to shit because the left is trying to create a society where the values you hold are despised and where the good people are blamed for everything while lazy people and criminals get to do whatever they want because of a misplaced sense of justice. What is actually happening is more mundane. It's political systems breaking because closed primaries and Gerrymandering mean that a significant population in a lot of places effectively get no political voice because the elections are held in the primaries, and the people can't vote in the opposing party's primary. Ossification results, or the candidate who appeals to the party's more ardent voters get elected, and we essentially lose the center as a political position. We also have a homeless situation that isn't being addressed, because no one wants to do anything effective. So what happens is that the only thing that can be done is to arrest them, and house them in jail temporarily. This is expensive and doesn't actually fix anything. So you have a bunch of frustrated citizens who feel like they have no control over their local policy and are sick of the petty crime, along with police who are handling it by not enforcing quality of life crimes in the hope people will blame the elected officials they don't like. Your frustration is real, but the causes you are attributing for them are wrong.
  - Spooky23 10mo ago
    The police rarely have ever been super responsive on shoplifting and basic trespass. I worked at a big box electronics store in the 90s, and we got looted when management did stupid shit like put hard drives on a retail shelf to save labor. The police rarely cared with some specific exception. These cases are both minor and hard to prosecute. The difference isn’t enforcement, it’s demand. The retail model as it stands today wasn’t designed for a world where there is a global market for everything. 95% people are honest, and most dishonest people are disorganized and easy to deter. If you were to raid a drug store in 1986, your ability to unload stolen toothpaste and hair spray was pretty limited - maybe some mafias had a network of bodegas or independent stores. Today, you have a major corporation that prides itself at having the “world‘s largest selection”. It’s also the worlds largest fence — Amazon.
  - danaris 10mo ago
    ...Do you, perhaps, detect some sort of a difference between your neighborhood convenience store, and Wal-Mart? Perhaps some differences in level of power? Perhaps some differences in the degree to which police are willing to bend over backward for them, vs blowing them off?
- pempem 10mo ago
  Your argument - esp the 'blue cities' bit given that the majority of metro(polis) cities in the US could be called blue (minus Miami, Houston, Dallas)- feels slanted. OP your post was "if you dont like face scanning don't shop there" because shops need face scanning to stop crime. However your next comment was that cops don't help. Here's the thing. They have a pretty terrible track record of help in any city including red ones. Have you called after having a fender bender on the highway in any state? Near a city, the answer is "no public property or third party damaged? exchange info yourself". Despite this they have been well-funded in the last few election cycles and this does not depend on the party elected. How about when an iphone gets stolen, or all the people using airtags to track their luggage? The private sector also does a so/so to shit job of helping you. Apple will let you find your phone, but its up to you to go get it, or wipe and restart. Tracking and storing all of my info and my face does not make the cops more effective at their jobs or prioritize this shop owner you know. Tracking and storing my info and face, doesn't help the shop keeper. It does however, seem that all this tracking of my info results in my information getting leaked time and time and again. Meaning that I've gone for a shop and somehow the probability of something being stolen from me goes up
nerdsniper 10mo ago
Police in my city are quite happy to lock people up for shoplifting. Random stores still lock up the majority of their inventory. I’m not sure how much that’s correlated.
- monero-xmr 10mo ago
  Arresting literally anyone except the repeat offenders that make the media would be a good start. It’s a joke right now
kevin_thibedeau 10mo ago
These stores should just convert to a 19th century retail model and not allow customers to enter the stockroom.
- monero-xmr 10mo ago
  See that’s exactly the type of thing I want to avoid. I would like to get back to a normal world where stealing is wrong and police arrest thieves
- fc417fc802 10mo ago
  That model also makes online shopping and delivery services easier to implement. I guess the issue is how labor intensive it is though. Instead of replacing cashiers with self checkout stands it goes in the opposite direction.
- mlrtime 10mo ago
  So Costco?
  - gs17 10mo ago
    No, Costco is pretty much just a normal store with warehouse vibes. They mean where you hand a shopping list to an employee at the front and they get everything for you.
- iamnothere 10mo ago
  You may also see stores revert to the 20th century model of having the mafia serve as private security. One reason they were so successful in some areas is that they were less corrupt and more responsive than the police. The bad thing about mafia enforcement is you don’t get civil rights. Oh, and if the mob boss wants a favor then you’re going to have to oblige, even if it puts you at risk. If police and DAs don’t take their jobs seriously, this is what they are inviting back into society.
duskdozer 10mo ago
Kind of a strange stance from someone with the name "monero-xmr". If scanning everyone's face for the purpose of going after petty crimes is justified, why shouldn't it be illegal to use monero for the purpose of going after other crimes?
- mlrtime 10mo ago
  Your [popular on HN] anti-crypto crusade doesn't make this a logical comparison. XMR is not illegal to use or own, shoplifting is.
  - TheNewsIsHere 10mo ago
    Something being illegal is not a blank check for unchecked surveillance.
  - duskdozer 10mo ago
    I'm actually not anti-crypto (anti-cryptobro, maybe). I'm anti-surveillance-state and I find it very strange that someone wouldn't recognize the obvious similar argument that monero would be enabling unpunished crime.
    - monero-xmr 9mo ago
      Monero is money. It is a tool for freedom. I don’t like fraud. As a libertarian I am fine with private businesses doing whatever they need to in order to prevent their property being stolen. Free citizens don’t have to shop there. It’s especially egregious considering the businesses are forced to pay taxes, and police are part of the services they pay for, but the state refuses to help them. Theft is wrong, period
      - FabHK 9mo ago
        And tax is not theft.
izacus 10mo ago
Or they could continue taking a small % of loss, remain wildly profitable and not abuse people.
- monero-xmr 10mo ago
  Make the rest of us pay 7% more so thieves can loot businesses and avoid getting a real job? How about no
  - izacus 9mo ago
    A few % is an easy cost not to live in a private surveillance distopia. 7% is a number that's a pure guess.
    - monero-xmr 9mo ago
      Don’t shop at stores you don’t support. Turn the TV off if you don’t like what’s on. Etc.

pempem 10mo ago

This is a false either/or. It has been proven and reproven that these claims of crime requiring store shutdowns were improperly put forward, without research, by a lobby. So much so that it was covered in mainstream media. December 2023: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-12-14/column-retail-lobby-confesses-it-lied-about-organized-shoplifting-rings https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-12-14/column-ret...

monero-xmr 10mo ago
I’m friends with the manager of my neighborhood convenience store and he is extremely angry that he has shoplifting caught on tape, trespassed people, begged and pleaded with the police but they won’t do anything. I’m not sure if you actually know anyone operating a retail store but it’s pretty grim in the blue cities
- mcphage 10mo ago
  You really need to figure out how to get the police to do their job.
- Terr_ 10mo ago
  The symptoms you're describing don't seem to match the proposed treatment. Police: "You've caught them red-handed on camera, but we're very busy and we don't care. Or perhaps this is a place where we're deliberately doing-nothing as a revenge or pressure-tactic against local politicians." Shopkeeper: "Ah, but this time I have the camera-footage and fancy biometrics of everyone in the store!" Police: "Oh, well why didn't you say so? That completely changes things, we're always willing to help out a fellow biometrics fan."
  - rurban 10mo ago
    Depends on the judges. If police cannot prove the crime in front of the judge, they wasted their time. With proper evidence it's not a waste of time anymore.
    - Eisenstein 10mo ago
      So the reason is that they are afraid of bringing case with witnesses and video footage to a judge because it might be too flimsy?
      - monero-xmr 10mo ago
        Progressive prosecutors don’t care. Judges let repeat offenders out with a wrist slap. Demoralizes police - what’s the point of all the effort if they are back out on the street tomorrow?
        Eisenstein 10mo ago
        Sounds like you have a narrative that you are going to believe no matter what.
        monero-xmr 10mo ago
        My narrative is living here forever and seeing everything go to shit
        Eisenstein 10mo ago
        No, that's your experience. The narrative is that everything went to shit because the left is trying to create a society where the values you hold are despised and where the good people are blamed for everything while lazy people and criminals get to do whatever they want because of a misplaced sense of justice. What is actually happening is more mundane. It's political systems breaking because closed primaries and Gerrymandering mean that a significant population in a lot of places effectively get no political voice because the elections are held in the primaries, and the people can't vote in the opposing party's primary. Ossification results, or the candidate who appeals to the party's more ardent voters get elected, and we essentially lose the center as a political position. We also have a homeless situation that isn't being addressed, because no one wants to do anything effective. So what happens is that the only thing that can be done is to arrest them, and house them in jail temporarily. This is expensive and doesn't actually fix anything. So you have a bunch of frustrated citizens who feel like they have no control over their local policy and are sick of the petty crime, along with police who are handling it by not enforcing quality of life crimes in the hope people will blame the elected officials they don't like. Your frustration is real, but the causes you are attributing for them are wrong.
- Spooky23 10mo ago
  The police rarely have ever been super responsive on shoplifting and basic trespass. I worked at a big box electronics store in the 90s, and we got looted when management did stupid shit like put hard drives on a retail shelf to save labor. The police rarely cared with some specific exception. These cases are both minor and hard to prosecute. The difference isn’t enforcement, it’s demand. The retail model as it stands today wasn’t designed for a world where there is a global market for everything. 95% people are honest, and most dishonest people are disorganized and easy to deter. If you were to raid a drug store in 1986, your ability to unload stolen toothpaste and hair spray was pretty limited - maybe some mafias had a network of bodegas or independent stores. Today, you have a major corporation that prides itself at having the “world‘s largest selection”. It’s also the worlds largest fence — Amazon.
- danaris 10mo ago
  ...Do you, perhaps, detect some sort of a difference between your neighborhood convenience store, and Wal-Mart? Perhaps some differences in level of power? Perhaps some differences in the degree to which police are willing to bend over backward for them, vs blowing them off?
pempem 10mo ago
Your argument - esp the 'blue cities' bit given that the majority of metro(polis) cities in the US could be called blue (minus Miami, Houston, Dallas)- feels slanted. OP your post was "if you dont like face scanning don't shop there" because shops need face scanning to stop crime. However your next comment was that cops don't help. Here's the thing. They have a pretty terrible track record of help in any city including red ones. Have you called after having a fender bender on the highway in any state? Near a city, the answer is "no public property or third party damaged? exchange info yourself". Despite this they have been well-funded in the last few election cycles and this does not depend on the party elected. How about when an iphone gets stolen, or all the people using airtags to track their luggage? The private sector also does a so/so to shit job of helping you. Apple will let you find your phone, but its up to you to go get it, or wipe and restart. Tracking and storing all of my info and my face does not make the cops more effective at their jobs or prioritize this shop owner you know. Tracking and storing my info and face, doesn't help the shop keeper. It does however, seem that all this tracking of my info results in my information getting leaked time and time and again. Meaning that I've gone for a shop and somehow the probability of something being stolen from me goes up

nerdsniper 10mo ago

Police in my city are quite happy to lock people up for shoplifting. Random stores still lock up the majority of their inventory. I’m not sure how much that’s correlated.

monero-xmr 10mo ago
Arresting literally anyone except the repeat offenders that make the media would be a good start. It’s a joke right now

kevin_thibedeau 10mo ago

These stores should just convert to a 19th century retail model and not allow customers to enter the stockroom.

monero-xmr 10mo ago
See that’s exactly the type of thing I want to avoid. I would like to get back to a normal world where stealing is wrong and police arrest thieves
fc417fc802 10mo ago
That model also makes online shopping and delivery services easier to implement. I guess the issue is how labor intensive it is though. Instead of replacing cashiers with self checkout stands it goes in the opposite direction.
mlrtime 10mo ago
So Costco?
- gs17 10mo ago
  No, Costco is pretty much just a normal store with warehouse vibes. They mean where you hand a shopping list to an employee at the front and they get everything for you.
iamnothere 10mo ago
You may also see stores revert to the 20th century model of having the mafia serve as private security. One reason they were so successful in some areas is that they were less corrupt and more responsive than the police. The bad thing about mafia enforcement is you don’t get civil rights. Oh, and if the mob boss wants a favor then you’re going to have to oblige, even if it puts you at risk. If police and DAs don’t take their jobs seriously, this is what they are inviting back into society.

duskdozer 10mo ago

Kind of a strange stance from someone with the name "monero-xmr". If scanning everyone's face for the purpose of going after petty crimes is justified, why shouldn't it be illegal to use monero for the purpose of going after other crimes?

mlrtime 10mo ago
Your [popular on HN] anti-crypto crusade doesn't make this a logical comparison. XMR is not illegal to use or own, shoplifting is.
- TheNewsIsHere 10mo ago
  Something being illegal is not a blank check for unchecked surveillance.
- duskdozer 10mo ago
  I'm actually not anti-crypto (anti-cryptobro, maybe). I'm anti-surveillance-state and I find it very strange that someone wouldn't recognize the obvious similar argument that monero would be enabling unpunished crime.
  - monero-xmr 9mo ago
    Monero is money. It is a tool for freedom. I don’t like fraud. As a libertarian I am fine with private businesses doing whatever they need to in order to prevent their property being stolen. Free citizens don’t have to shop there. It’s especially egregious considering the businesses are forced to pay taxes, and police are part of the services they pay for, but the state refuses to help them. Theft is wrong, period
    - FabHK 9mo ago
      And tax is not theft.

izacus 10mo ago

Or they could continue taking a small % of loss, remain wildly profitable and not abuse people.

monero-xmr 10mo ago
Make the rest of us pay 7% more so thieves can loot businesses and avoid getting a real job? How about no
- izacus 9mo ago
  A few % is an easy cost not to live in a private surveillance distopia. 7% is a number that's a pure guess.
  - monero-xmr 9mo ago
    Don’t shop at stores you don’t support. Turn the TV off if you don’t like what’s on. Etc.