5 ms·
I wonder what they mean by this? > The camera can have different ways of seeing encoded in it, including kinds of gazes that enforce social agreements about wh
by smithkl42 4mo ago
I wonder what they mean by this?
> The camera can have different ways of seeing encoded in it, including kinds of gazes that enforce social agreements about what kinds of behavior and people are considered “normal”
The phrase "kinds of gazes" strikes me as the sort of thing that's only going to make sense to people trained in a very particular and idiosyncratic flavor of ethical critique. What a normal person sees here is, "These cameras can detect if people are acting bizarre and dangerous," which is probably something most people would appreciate. In Seattle, the problem, of course, is that the streets are full of people acting bizarre and dangerous, it doesn't take a camera network to find them, and the police seem to be under strict orders not to do anything about it.
- Stefan-H 4mo agoWhat came to mind is a camera pointed at the cash register tells a very different story than the camera pointed at the ATM, or pointing from the ATM for that matter. Placement and the stories behind them offer interesting perspectives on what the observers are trying to catch or deter.
- bonoboTP 4mo agoDo you mean trying to catch employee theft vs theft by externals? Why can't you write plainly instead of in riddles?
- Stefan-H 4mo agoYou are asking me why I can't write plainly, but I believe you're confusing me for the author, but I'll answer you anyways. "Plain" language removes nuance. Example: "She sat on the chair". The number of ways that action can be described are as innumerable as the ways it can be done, and then some - as different people may describe an act in different ways. Communication in all forms is lossy, but you can convey more than just direct ideas by adding subtext or using language that draws the reader to make comparisons new comparisons. Perhaps the author used gaze to anthropomorphize the camera to add on the layer of judgement or shame that the camera conveys, perhaps to an employee that is not trusted to manage a till.
- bonoboTP 4mo agoI asked about your comment that I replied to. The "stories" you see in the camera positioning would need elaboration. To me the concept sounds quite mundane. It's pointed at something they want to see. Cash register: see if someone steals, possibly an employee. ATM: See if it gets robbed. Camera built into the atm: capture photo of robber. Not sure what deeper story or insight lies in it and you gave no example.
- Stefan-H 4mo agoThe "stories" I reference are the wide ranges of events, decisions, and conversations that went into the camera's placement. Are the cameras just for show? Have they recently modernized? Were there discussions and arguments around employee or patron privacy? Are the videos watched incessantly or left to molder? Cameras are rarely mundane, they are a very visible representation of controls related to trust and privacy.
- bonoboTP 4mo agoThanks, that makes sense.
- myrmidon 4mo agoMy best guess would be [[Surveillance cameras normalize/denormalize behavior in a way that is easily biased and undemocratic.]] It might e.g. direct the full force of law against a drunk urinating on a tree (easy to spot/classify), while tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language (missing data/difficult to detect). Letting automated surveillance systems judge people will inevitably influence our own collective judgement.
- ctoth 4mo ago> tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language Two people arguing in public, words only, is close to a legal non-event in the US. So I would hope so?
- seethishat 4mo agoUntil one of them communicates a threat, then it is a criminal matter.
- stickfigure 4mo agoI don't think you're advocating to have our personal conversations continuously monitored whenever outside, but in the context of this thread, that's what it sounds like.
- nightpool 4mo agoNo, in the context of the thread it sounds like they're illustrating myrmidon's point about how the selective enforcement of crimes that are easy to catch on camera means that the police have less time (and less inclination, training, norms) for addressing more serious crimes, like interpersonal violence. More broadly, they're not saying that we should make the cameras better to catch more crime, they're saying that when you make cameras the main way you catch crime, you shift the social definition of what crime is to "what cameras can catch".
- emptybits 4mo ago
- thewebguyd 4mo ago> acting bizarre and dangerous The problem with surveillance like this becomes "who gets to decide what is bizarre and dangerous?"
- mc32 4mo agoThey could at least address that the man and woman on the street would easily identify as people who need to be put in a paddy wagon. Leave the unsure cases alone. Get the obvious ones.
- bonoboTP 4mo agoElected lawmakers and courts.
- lux-lux-lux 4mo agoIt’s actually the arbitrary whims of police officers
- matheusmoreira 4mo agoThe ones bought and paid for by billion dollar corporations and industries?
- brailsafe 4mo agoThe entire city of Seattle seems to have been bought and paid for by basically 2 - 4 companies. Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing, ...Starbucks in year's past maybe?
- smithkl42 4mo agoIf that was the case, it seems like those companies would have forced the city to clean up 10th and Jackson.
- thewebguyd 4mo agoWhy would they? None of the major tech companies have offices in the international district, it doesn't directly impact them. They are however at least partially responsible for the rapid gentrification and cost of living crisis in Seattle and have displaced and priced out local residents causing and continuing to worsen the problem.
- superbyte 4mo ago[flagged]
- shortstuffsushi 4mo agoUsually, I'd say this sort of comment is not really contributing much to the conversation, but in this case I agree with the sentiment. With a lot of these posts about the surveillance tech that's becoming increasingly prominent everywhere in the public, there are a lot of commenters here that seem to be of the opinion that "this is fine, as long as you have nothing to hide, there's nothing lost" - or worse in this case, that perhaps that there's something to be gained by taking the "bizarre and dangerous" off the street. Admittedly, I do not live in one of the cities that have issues with a large homeless population, so the experience is a bit lost on me, but I am surprised to see, especially on this forum, people embrace any form of surveillance state. We evidently have learned nothing by both the performative and actual surveillance adds since the Patriot Act. Perhaps the general populous is in fact on board with this and those of us who aren't are the minority.
- Bratmon 4mo ago> I do not live in one of the cities that have issues with a large homeless population, so the experience is a bit lost on me That's the key experience you're missing. If you've never lived in a high-homeless/drug abuse area, you don't really understand how thoroughly draining it is on every aspect of civic life.
- shortstuffsushi 4mo agoI recognize that I'm missing that part of the context, but it still surprises me that the answer to that is relatively global surveillance. In the current state of things, homelessness is perfectly public and observable, right? And so at any point now, the proposed "enforcement" could take place without the need for cameras? I think that part is unclear to me as well, the problem that exists that this solves.
- 4mo ago
- gowld 4mo ago>> enforce social agreements about what kinds of behavior and people are considered “normal” > What a normal person sees here The post is talking about you.
- RickS 4mo agoThere's a PG essay related to this: https://paulgraham.com/orth.html https://paulgraham.com/orth.html
- chadgpt3 4mo agoI wonder which opinion inspired him to write this. Given the date, maybe it was something about race politics or coronavirus.
- bonoboTP 4mo agoI think it's clear what it means but indeed it's formulated in a critical theory framework (see also "male gaze" in feminist theory) that makes it seem more complicated. Yes, they take camera images and videos and there is value judgment regarding the behaviors. Reading between the lines, the authors criticize the approach of law enforcement around drug use and dealing, living on the street in tents etc. But the language makes it sound like special academic expert language and hence automatically right and high prestige.
- Barbing 4mo agoGaze language needed to be fleshed out perhaps
- anigbrowl 4mo agoAgreed. I have a read a lot of social/political theory and I am sick of this language. These are academic/philosophical tropes presented as if they were scientific findings. Even when the ideas are interesting, the Theoretical baggage gets in the way and the result is at best clumsy and at worst insufferably pompous. I try to make a habit of gently reminding academics I know how badly this gets in the way of communication with non-academic people and ends up hindering the transmission of their ideas. To be honest, I think quite a lot of academics wind up communicating this way because they're subconsciously looking for positive feedback from their colleagues and so slip into the abstruse language of the classroom without realizing it.
- goatlover 4mo agoReminds me of Winston in 1984 doing his best to look like he doesn't have thought crimes in his head. What are we doing here?