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We need some way to address the low level crime in the US. If you look at cities in east Asia, they're both much larger than typical US cities and much safer. I
by icapybara 3mo ago
We need some way to address the low level crime in the US. If you look at cities in east Asia, they're both much larger than typical US cities and much safer. It -is- possible to have safe large cities. The fact that we don't is a choice.
- monkaiju 3mo agoWhat do you mean we don't? Our cities seem quite safe...
- greenleafone7 3mo agoIt is possible. What keeps japanese cities safe'er', is not the cameras though.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3mo agoIt’s the culture. Every Japanese person is always aware that they are “a part of society.” Even the Yakuza participate in society. When they have big disasters, the local mobsters are usually helping people out, before the authorities can get going.
- greenleafone7 3mo agoYou participate and feel that you belong to a society in the same way you would do for a family. The members have to be your own. This has been empirically shown to be true in every single case. If I force my way in your house and you are legally obligated to consider me part of your family, you might for a while, but your level of participation and your willingness for it will drop by a lot. Pretending it isn't so will not help anyone, it will make things harder. Japan, to their credit, does not pretend.
- righthand 3mo agoUS cities are plenty safe. The fact that you think otherwise is propaganda you’ve been successfully served. I live in Nyc and visit other cities often.
- Waterluvian 3mo agoIt’s hard to distil to a single comment but I think it might be a poor example given the NYPD takes about double the budget per capita to be less safe than Toronto. I think the only objective conclusion we can come to in a comments section is that going by “I visited there” vibes isn’t going to be useful.
- righthand 3mo agoWhat about the high murder rate and meth problems of middle America, lets talk about that more instead of the “oh no homeless people” rhetoric all the time.
- steelbrain 3mo agoYou must live in a different New York City than the one I visited. I had the safety calibration of Tallinn, Estonia and Dubai, UAE. The subway was extremely hostile. People were regularly drugged out of their mind. I saw one guy try to drink a Coca Cola upside down and spilled it all in the bus. Another crazy chased my limited mobility Estonian friend who wanted to visit nyc alongside me when she went alone for groceries. Could it be that your frame of reference is broken and/or you’re numb to it?
- beau_g 3mo agoYou saw someone try to drink a soda upside down and spill it? We are going to need more than a Flock cam to stop that heinous act, perhaps a Flock robot arm that could grab the criminals arm and turn it right side up, or just restrain them while the authorities are on the way.
- steelbrain 3mo ago[flagged]
- filoleg 3mo agoI saw a tall man on L train stomping aggressively through the car and yelling bloody murder that he is gonna "stab the next mf I see", while attempting to swing punches at random people. The whole train ended up getting evacuated, and the train line got delayed. That was last winter. Between then and now, I saw people threatening others on the subway multiple times. The most recent incident was a few weeks ago on Q train, where a seated man was screaming at the woman across from him (who was trying to do her best to ignore him), how he was gonna kill her and "the rest of her people" (whatever that means). But please tell me how stuff like this never happens. And I am not even a subway hater overall, I take it daily, and it is my preferred method of transportation. And no, I am not taking subway into deep and shady parts of bronx or brooklyn, as heavy majority of my rides are contained between Dekalb/Jay St Metrotech (aka dt brooklyn) and midtown. It just sounds like crazy talk to me, when someone claims that the safety cams in subway cars are not, at least, somewhat helpful. At least newer A/C train cars have those cams now, and, I hope, it will lead to prosecution of serial subway harassers.
- jchw 3mo agoA lot of the neighborhoods where Flock is being deployed aren't even bad by higher standards, so I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.
- epoxia 3mo agoWhat's even more amazing is that they had these safe cities without [Flock, Motorola, Axon]. I guess we will never know how they did it, but at least we get the Chinese surveillance state.
- khuey 3mo agoMy experience in major East Asian cities (predominantly Tokyo and Taipei) is that they have extensive networks of surveillance cameras operated by or accessible to the police.
- dopidopHN2 3mo agoFlock is not the police. Their main customer is Home Depot. Their second one is Lowe's. Then come the big police department. Allowing a private company to profit of holding information about me is innerving to me. I would feel better if it was 100% run by the police. ( better, not good )
- abalashov 3mo agoAnd it's not an accident that Flock cameras were implicated in many ICE raids at Home Depot and Lowe's, either.
- naturalmovement 3mo ago[flagged]
- abalashov 3mo agoIt was both, of course, but it's not an accident they were placed there at scale.
- naturalmovement 3mo agoI disagree, I see them all over the place, it is due to shoplifting.
- fc417fc802 3mo agoA choice that has tradeoffs. Assuming we're talking about the sorts of places that lean heavily into surveillance I don't want to live there and their views on the role of the government is one of the reasons.
- shiandow 3mo agoBy low level crime you mean unlawful surveillance?
- mcmcmc 3mo agoPoverty and lack of economic opportunity are the biggest drivers of street-level crime. Good thing we have all these AI layoffs.
- thisisnotauser 3mo agoI've lived in major US cities my entire life and have never been a victim of crime. Do you have any facts to back up this seemingly outrageous claim?
- dw_arthur 3mo agoYou're correct that it is a choice. Flock would barely move the needle on stopping crimes caused by the mentally ill and drug addicted.
- nosioptar 3mo agoMy small city was safer before flock. Before, if the cops asked for witnesses to come forward, they always got someone because they had a good reputation and were trusted. A few years of the people saying no to flock and the cops and city hall ignoring us has destroyed that trust. Now, when the cops ask for help, they get told to go flock themselves. I'd suggest a better way is to reform policing. They need to start working for all the people, not just the Epstein class.
- doctorpangloss 3mo ago> If you look at cities in east Asia, they're... much safer. ah yes, the famously dependable statistics of east Asia, with their famously free press and citizen auditing communities, and the famously dependable impressions of tourists and expatriates...
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- naturalmovement 3mo agoEast Asia built a uni-culture by being extremely racist against outsiders. I don't think you can get away with that anywhere else. A friend of mine (white guy) married a Chinese woman and when they visited China they were subject to slurs and dirty looks in public. There's a whole category of videos on social media of Japanese furiously angry at Westerners acting like fools on their subways. They're not happy about it.
- kevmo314 3mo agoThe pot calling the kettle black…
- infecto 3mo agoWhat are you even trying to say? Why does everything devolve into whataboutism?
- arjie 3mo agoI’m an Indian with a Taiwanese-American wife. I’ve never experienced even the mildest amount of racism in Taiwan. Everyone was kind and friendly to me. And Taiwan is very safe. I’m not going to pretend that an anecdote fully captures a problem but considering I spent over a month there just living a normal life I imagine that if the problem were widespread I’d have many chances to experience it. My elderly parents were there for two weeks too and they have nothing but positive things to say. And finally, my wife’s cousin married a White man from Ireland and he has loved the place for the many years he’s lived there.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- infecto 3mo agoI don’t know if I would consider a month long vacation as evidence. Taiwan is pretty famous for have lower labor classes that they import from places like the Philippines and while people are friendly, they are still generally looked down upon. Not dissimilar to places like Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. So I think racism is a pretty loaded and broad word and people typically think about it in purely an American context, it’s more common around the world than people think in all kinds of shades. Ultimately I do agree with the original thesis around monocultures.
- cr125rider 3mo agoThat sounds pretty racist though… Is the anti-prosecution narrative
- llm_nerd 3mo agoYou're getting loads of replies that seem to knee-jerk defend US cities purely to oppose Flock. And let's be real and admit that adding more cameras does little to improve this. My whole neighbourhood has a panopticon of surveillance cameras on every property, yet there have still been home burglaries and several cars stolen. Many Asian cities are safer -- and they undisputedly are -- for cultural reasons. You can't create culture through surveillance.
- kevin_thibedeau 3mo ago> much safer They have severe consequences for criminal behavior and no subculture that elevates criminality.
- FireBeyond 3mo ago> and no subculture that elevates criminality And which subculture, specifically, would you be referring to here?
- goatlover 3mo agoWhat is the trade off though and are Americans willing to make it? What sort of social conditions lead to more low level crime? This sort of complaint is nothing new btw.
- rdiddly 3mo agoDon't we? Crime rates have been dropping for decades. https://usafacts.org/answers/what-is-the-crime-rate-in-the-us/country/united-states/ https://usafacts.org/answers/what-is-the-crime-rate-in-the-u... But if the choice is between liberty and safety, then Americans are supposed to choose liberty, that's why America is what it is. Ben Franklin famously said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
- Cider9986 3mo agoExactly. More people die from cars every month in the US than in 9/11. We value our freedom with cars, we should value our privacy to an even greater extent.
- TiredOfLife 3mo agoProsecution of crimes has been dropping. Not crime itself.
- edoceo 3mo agoHow much of that is addressed by a strong social-safety net? How are addicts and homeless people handled? How about general poverty (a known driver of crime)?