4 ms·

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m a law abiding citizen of $other_country and at this point I wouldn’t touch the US with a very long pole. Just doesn’t se

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m a law abiding citizen of $other_country and at this point I wouldn’t touch the US with a very long pole. Just doesn’t seem worth it

refurb 8mo ago
I find this stance funny because at least in my experience facial recognition adoption is lagging in the US and privacy implications are discussed. The other countries I’ve traveled to just adopted with broadly without any discussion of privacy, just a “look how convenient this is!!”
- BugsJustFindMe 8mo ago
  This article isn't about facial recognition. It's about the US executive branch repeatedly running roughshod over the law and lying. In that context, your comment is a non sequitur.
  - expedition32 8mo ago
    Exactly. It is not about the technology it is about the implementation. My country isn't perfect but at least we keep the racists, fascists and religious nut cases in line.
  - refurb 8mo ago
    My comment was in reference to the comment I replied to. I thought that was obvious?
    - BugsJustFindMe 8mo ago
      Your comment is in reference to something that the comment you were replying to does not mention at all and is not about. That is the definition of a non sequitur. > "I don't feel safe entering the US anymore" > "Other countries do facial recognition too" You see how the two statements are not directly linked.
      - refurb 8mo ago
        Huh? Article is about facial recognition. Comments says "I'm scared to go to the US because of...<article>" I response with a comment about the facial recognition and how every other country I've been to does it, but for some bizarre reason, it's not those countries OP is worried about, it's the US. It's cognitive dissonance.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8mo ago
  As I was told by no lesser expert than Yan LeCun [1], there's a difference between facial recognition and facial verification. The latter is when you stand in front of the automated gates at the airport and your fact is scanned and compared to the photo on your just-scanned passport to, well, verify, that you are the passport holder. Many countries have adopted this technology and after my exchange with LeCun I must say even I, terminally paranoid about being filed away in databases etc, am a little more comfortable with that. At the very least, in an EU country (and also the UK) you can ask for the operators of such services for all the data they have on you and instruct them to destroy it, so even if they keep your picture, you can often do something about it. Facial recognition is the use of the same technology to match a picture of your face to pictures in some face picture database in order to identify you, without the need of a passport or other photographic id. As the Wired article points out, this use case has a very high rate of failure "in the wild", i.e. with natural lighting conditions, varied body postures and facial accessories etc. There are a few police forces in certain countries that have adopted this tech, but it's not as widely deployed as facial verification. The article above is complaining about the use of facial recognition. It's a bit confusing because the article keeps using the term "verification" as does the Wired article, but there's a clear description of matching a picture taken on the street to faces in a "database", and there's no mention of using the tech to match a person to the photo on their id, so that's facial recognition, not verification. There's a serious issue of invasion of privacy from unchecked use of facial recognition. Unfortunately most people are not going to care much, like they didn't care much when e.g. the UK installed surveilance cameras [2] all over the place, and like they don't care much when Meta, Google, Amazon, and everyone else vacuums up their online behavioural patterns for targeted advertisement etc. ___________ [1] Twitter thread, can't find it now. [2] Or so-called CCTV. Please excuse a long-ago Metal Gear Solid player a small terminological transgression.
  - refurb 8mo ago
    I don't really see the distinction? There are many countries now that don't require a passport to enter - you can simply get a facial scan. And even beyond that, the countries that do take a photo and compare with your passport and absolutely storing that photo and using it for whatever purpose they might have laid out. So if the issue is that your privacy is being threatened due to a stored photo of you - that happens whether it's facial recognition or facial verification.
exceptione 8mo ago
I wouldn't. Tourism has plummeted already. I don't know how things are going for international conferences, insofar they had survived Covid. Based on anecdata, I assume they do feel the isolation. Usually big sport events are used to improve optics for authoritarian regimes, often outbidding well-functioning democracies. Quatar, China, Russia, Nazi Germany [1] to name a few. I think the world cup football is a welcome event, as it gives some 'normalcy' to the US regime, and legitimacy to their policies. It is interesting to study the history around [1], as not many things have changed how people approach these kinds of dilemmas. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics
- stopbulying 8mo ago
  Are these ones reich scholars like Rove? Bush-Rove-Schwarzegnegger: https://www.counterpunch.org/2003/10/06/the-bush-rove-schwarzegnegger-nazi-nexus/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2003/10/06/the-bush-rove-schwar... : > According to [...], Rove’s grandfather was Karl Heinz Roverer, the Gauleiter of Oldenburg. Roverer was Reich-Statthalter—Nazi State Party Chairman—for his region. He was also a partner and senior engineer in the Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurburo A. G. engineering firm, which built the Birkenau death camp, at which tens of thousands of [...] Oh, also Rove and Kenneth Lay of the Enron deregulatory debacle that put California hospitals in rolling blackouts in the dark. vegas empty https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Vegas+empty https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Vegas+e... They forced the US into trillions of dollars of debt by cutting taxes and starting wars. They have not paid the bills for the wars that they started and debt-financed. "Starve the beast" (Reagan/Bush, Bush, Trump): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast LIV Golf "From Infiltrating Wikipedia to Paying Trump Millions in Golf Deals, Saudis Whitewash Rights Record" (2023) https://www.democracynow.org/2023/1/17/saudi_arabia_wikipedia_manipulation_dawn https://www.democracynow.org/2023/1/17/saudi_arabia_wikipedi... : > LIV has paid millions to golf resorts owned by Donald Trump, who has publicly supported the new league which is attempting to compete with the PGA. Trump takes direct payments from SA for Liv golf. "Analysis: The real reason Donald Trump is on board with LIV Golf" https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/politics/donald-trump-liv-golf-pga-tour https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/politics/donald-trump-liv-gol... quoting a presidential masto-toot: > "All of those golfers that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all of its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year,” Trump wrote. “If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.”
malshe 8mo ago
I know someone who is hosting an academic conference. In the past, this conference used to have about 50% attendees from Europe. This year that number is about 5%.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m a law abiding citizen of $other_country and at this point I wouldn’t touch the US with a very long pole. Just doesn’t seem worth it

refurb 8mo ago

I find this stance funny because at least in my experience facial recognition adoption is lagging in the US and privacy implications are discussed. The other countries I’ve traveled to just adopted with broadly without any discussion of privacy, just a “look how convenient this is!!”

BugsJustFindMe 8mo ago
This article isn't about facial recognition. It's about the US executive branch repeatedly running roughshod over the law and lying. In that context, your comment is a non sequitur.
- expedition32 8mo ago
  Exactly. It is not about the technology it is about the implementation. My country isn't perfect but at least we keep the racists, fascists and religious nut cases in line.
- refurb 8mo ago
  My comment was in reference to the comment I replied to. I thought that was obvious?
  - BugsJustFindMe 8mo ago
    Your comment is in reference to something that the comment you were replying to does not mention at all and is not about. That is the definition of a non sequitur. > "I don't feel safe entering the US anymore" > "Other countries do facial recognition too" You see how the two statements are not directly linked.
    - refurb 8mo ago
      Huh? Article is about facial recognition. Comments says "I'm scared to go to the US because of...<article>" I response with a comment about the facial recognition and how every other country I've been to does it, but for some bizarre reason, it's not those countries OP is worried about, it's the US. It's cognitive dissonance.
YeGoblynQueenne 8mo ago
As I was told by no lesser expert than Yan LeCun [1], there's a difference between facial recognition and facial verification. The latter is when you stand in front of the automated gates at the airport and your fact is scanned and compared to the photo on your just-scanned passport to, well, verify, that you are the passport holder. Many countries have adopted this technology and after my exchange with LeCun I must say even I, terminally paranoid about being filed away in databases etc, am a little more comfortable with that. At the very least, in an EU country (and also the UK) you can ask for the operators of such services for all the data they have on you and instruct them to destroy it, so even if they keep your picture, you can often do something about it. Facial recognition is the use of the same technology to match a picture of your face to pictures in some face picture database in order to identify you, without the need of a passport or other photographic id. As the Wired article points out, this use case has a very high rate of failure "in the wild", i.e. with natural lighting conditions, varied body postures and facial accessories etc. There are a few police forces in certain countries that have adopted this tech, but it's not as widely deployed as facial verification. The article above is complaining about the use of facial recognition. It's a bit confusing because the article keeps using the term "verification" as does the Wired article, but there's a clear description of matching a picture taken on the street to faces in a "database", and there's no mention of using the tech to match a person to the photo on their id, so that's facial recognition, not verification. There's a serious issue of invasion of privacy from unchecked use of facial recognition. Unfortunately most people are not going to care much, like they didn't care much when e.g. the UK installed surveilance cameras [2] all over the place, and like they don't care much when Meta, Google, Amazon, and everyone else vacuums up their online behavioural patterns for targeted advertisement etc. ___________ [1] Twitter thread, can't find it now. [2] Or so-called CCTV. Please excuse a long-ago Metal Gear Solid player a small terminological transgression.
- refurb 8mo ago
  I don't really see the distinction? There are many countries now that don't require a passport to enter - you can simply get a facial scan. And even beyond that, the countries that do take a photo and compare with your passport and absolutely storing that photo and using it for whatever purpose they might have laid out. So if the issue is that your privacy is being threatened due to a stored photo of you - that happens whether it's facial recognition or facial verification.

exceptione 8mo ago

I wouldn't. Tourism has plummeted already. I don't know how things are going for international conferences, insofar they had survived Covid. Based on anecdata, I assume they do feel the isolation. Usually big sport events are used to improve optics for authoritarian regimes, often outbidding well-functioning democracies. Quatar, China, Russia, Nazi Germany [1] to name a few. I think the world cup football is a welcome event, as it gives some 'normalcy' to the US regime, and legitimacy to their policies. It is interesting to study the history around [1], as not many things have changed how people approach these kinds of dilemmas. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Summer_Olympics

stopbulying 8mo ago
Are these ones reich scholars like Rove? Bush-Rove-Schwarzegnegger: https://www.counterpunch.org/2003/10/06/the-bush-rove-schwarzegnegger-nazi-nexus/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2003/10/06/the-bush-rove-schwar... : > According to [...], Rove’s grandfather was Karl Heinz Roverer, the Gauleiter of Oldenburg. Roverer was Reich-Statthalter—Nazi State Party Chairman—for his region. He was also a partner and senior engineer in the Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurburo A. G. engineering firm, which built the Birkenau death camp, at which tens of thousands of [...] Oh, also Rove and Kenneth Lay of the Enron deregulatory debacle that put California hospitals in rolling blackouts in the dark. vegas empty https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Vegas+empty https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Vegas+e... They forced the US into trillions of dollars of debt by cutting taxes and starting wars. They have not paid the bills for the wars that they started and debt-financed. "Starve the beast" (Reagan/Bush, Bush, Trump): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast LIV Golf "From Infiltrating Wikipedia to Paying Trump Millions in Golf Deals, Saudis Whitewash Rights Record" (2023) https://www.democracynow.org/2023/1/17/saudi_arabia_wikipedia_manipulation_dawn https://www.democracynow.org/2023/1/17/saudi_arabia_wikipedi... : > LIV has paid millions to golf resorts owned by Donald Trump, who has publicly supported the new league which is attempting to compete with the PGA. Trump takes direct payments from SA for Liv golf. "Analysis: The real reason Donald Trump is on board with LIV Golf" https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/politics/donald-trump-liv-golf-pga-tour https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/19/politics/donald-trump-liv-gol... quoting a presidential masto-toot: > "All of those golfers that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all of its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year,” Trump wrote. “If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were.”

malshe 8mo ago

I know someone who is hosting an academic conference. In the past, this conference used to have about 50% attendees from Europe. This year that number is about 5%.