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> However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there. This is directly refuted by Singapore, Japan, arguably the UK, and others. Singapore i
by urams 3mo ago
> However, once the cameras go up, you will never ever create one there.
This is directly refuted by Singapore, Japan, arguably the UK, and others. Singapore is very interesting to visit. Externally there's somewhat of a narrative of a harsh police state but when I visited I almost never saw a single police officer and they don't have particularly many police officers on a per capita basis (170/100k vs 440/100k in NYC). Most of the policing naturally happens by aid of the surveillance system and a very strong effort to take action to bring justice for any crime. As a result, everyone believes crime will be punished and so you end up with a very safe society. This expectation of crime being taken seriously actually _creates_ trust because you can have high faith that any criminal action someone may take will have consequences and therefore be deterred.
- vasco 3mo agoWhat they were saying is they prefer people to behave because they want to be good people which are part of a good society than to be good people simply as a byproduct of fear of jail.
- derektank 3mo agoWhen did we start making good people? I thought we were still using the base model.
- vasco 3mo agoWanting to be a good person is different than being a good person. I said the former not the latter. The former is about intent behind actions and what you strive to be. The latter is about thinking people are born in boxes.
- PunchyHamster 3mo agoThose societies were created way before the level of survelliance modern AI pushes
- vuurmot 3mo agoIn Singapore, policing does not have the dystopian surveillance thing attached to it, because a large number of police are civilian conscripts. It takes the edge off, when you know that your neighbor's 18 year old kid is working in the police force, rather than some mercenary force On top of that, the majority of the military consists of civilian conscripts, which arguably holds more power if the system ever goes bad enough to degenerate into martial law
- forrestthewoods 3mo agoThis is all true. But it’s still a counter-example to “once cameras go up all trust is lost”. Clearly cameras are not the sole issue that makes trust achievable. As demonstrated by high-trust societies with cameras!
- urams 3mo ago> In Singapore, policing does not have the dystopian surveillance thing attached to it, because a large number of police are civilian conscripts. I would not have guessed in a million years that someone would argue that country's surveillance doesn't have a dystopian vibe because the country conscripts people into service.
- vuurmot 3mo agofyi Finland has the same conscription rates, I don't see them being criticized for conscription? Maybe they are too white, or maybe people who injected too much rugged individualism into their veins have rotted views of society A system that has brought security and cohesion, and thus wealth, is accused of being dystopic
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- vkou 3mo agoConscripts policing their own society will almost certainly produce better outcomes than people attracted to power volunteering to do so instead. Especially if that society is fairly homogenous. (I'm well aware that Singapore is a fusion of cultures, but it's nothing like an empire that can shuffle its conscripts around, so that they always end up policing and brutalizing an ethnic group that's different from theirs.
- kakacik 3mo agoRead up a bit on it. You have numerous signs over the town that state explicitly canning in case of participating in any form of protest that government will consider violent. How that is defined is of course on... government. Read up on how they treat immigrants, its basically serfdom pyramid of massive exploitation on all levels of poor from neighboring countries - confirmed by colleagues living there long term. Its great little bubble, but not of democracy, or freedom, far from it, rather some moebius-esque utopia of few elites above everybody else. They are also openly racist & xenophobic in their laws, ie in immigration they have to maintain exactly same racial/ethnic split as in the past, so people are granted citizenship on quotas of their ethnicity / skin color (so of course white people are not that welcome, just temporarily tolerated). If this is required to keep everybody in check and behaving nicely, I can easily skip that and raise my children away from such twisted panopticon. You want an actual long term stable utmost free society for past 800 years and counting? Switzerland. People are nice and tolerant because they are nice and not from the fear of repressions on every step. 30% of residents are foreigners yet society doesn't boil in internal conflicts, I'd say by far the best managed immigration I ever saw. One has to experience it personally to understand the massive difference compared to most of the world. Tons of guns yet very little gun violence (compared to US non-existent). All aspects of society work at least as good or more often better than rest of Europe/world.
- thaumaturgy 3mo agoThere's a glaring lie of omission when Singapore is cited as a "safe society" in a surveillance context without also mentioning that those same surveillance systems are used to aggressively suppress political dissent (https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/south-east-asia-and-the-pacific/singapore/report-singapore/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/sou...). Super safe society, unless you happen to express disagreement with any part of it. Then, not so safe for you. So I guess the question is, once America attains a sufficiently pervasive level of surveillance over its citizens, which people are you hoping will be in power forever?
- janalsncm 3mo agoThere are two separate types of events with associated probabilities: 1) the probability of being harmed by criminals, and 2) the probability of being harmed by the government. For most people in most places, police are ineffective and therefore the first is orders of magnitude more of a problem. For example in the Bay Area, car break-ins are incredibly common and police are incapable of solving it. This would be unthinkable in Singapore. > unless you happen to express disagreement with any part of it On the other hand, the government in Singapore is genuinely popular. A majority eligible of voters chose to re-elect the incumbent. For reference, only 32% of eligible American voters chose the current US president.
- paol 3mo agoHow meaningful is that in a society where political dissidence is suppressed?
- vkou 3mo agoIt's somewhat meaningful. No society can go on for very long when a supermajority of it actively hates the government.
- adrian_b 3mo agoEven in the recent past, all the countries dominated by the Soviet Union have gone for a half of century without problems, while a supermajority of their citizens actively hated their government, and by "hate" I mean like really wishing all of them dead. This was made possible with traditional surveillance. With the modern surveillance means and with drones and robots, there will no longer exist any way in which even a great supermajority could remove a government.
- voidUpdate 3mo agoSaying the UK is a "high trust society" is definitely an interesting choice
- michaelt 3mo agoMost standards for “high trust society” are astonishingly low. Respect for private property rights? A court system that’s broadly seen as following the law? Elections where the outcomes are not disputed? Officials not soliciting or accepting bribes from normal citizens? High trust society. The UK certainly has its problems, but the tricks are often technically legal, and they’re nowhere near as bad as in third world countries.
- Y-bar 3mo agoA high trust society is not only a measure of the relationship between civil population and the state, but also the interpersonal relationships among citizens. That said, bribery is quite common in UK nowadays: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/millions-people-uk-are-being-drawn-bribery-and-money-laundering-according-new-study https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/millions-people-uk-are-being-d...
- KaiserPro 3mo agohttps://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/12/01/where-most-people-trust-others-and-where-they-dont-around-the-world/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/12/01/where-mos... ITs not actually that surprising. Trust is different to cynicism though.
- raxxorraxor 3mo agoI don't think this is a refutation. You have narrowed the definition of an admittedly soft term like "high trust society" to be an expression of security or perceived security. But more to the core of the definition of trust. Singapore isn't using trust, it uses control. Which in most contexts are opposed. Surveillance isn't even important for the formation of a high trust society. On the contrary, with increased surveillance possibilities, formerly high trust societies seem to have degraded.
- cicko 3mo agoDoes making millions in profit from bitcoin while being a president or getting private jets from other countries count into that?
- akk0 3mo agoThat sounds great! Maybe not so great for the occasional person sentenced to death for selling weed, but that's just the price of freedom.
- pibaker 3mo agoJapan is not a surveillance society. UK is not a high trust society. If anything the most trusting British people are likely found in places with the least surveillance.
- KaiserPro 3mo ago> UK is not a high trust society. sorry but data and experience does not bear that out. Denending on which source you look at, the Uk is a "high trust" society. Now, your assertion about surveillance, sounds true but kinda rings a bit false. The places where there are less CCTV cameras tend to be rural areas, and let me tell you, they do not trust anyone they don't know (I used to live in rural england) why? because there is no chance that the police will help you, unless you're being threatened.
- mlrtime 3mo agoSo if I leave my bike unlocked in London city, it will not get stolen?
- KaiserPro 3mo agoyes, more that likely it will If you leave your bike unlocked in Amsterdam will it get stolen? yes, and its a higher trust country than the uk remember that trust and crime are not 100% correlated.
- mlrtime 3mo agoTo me, the physical property safety is ONE OF the pillars of high trust. Meaning, you cannot trust people in these places to not take your stuff. And it isn't most of them, its the <1% they tolerate.
- JKCalhoun 3mo ago"You know how they deal with crime down there?" Crosby asked me. "Nope." "They just don't have any crime down there. 'Papa' Monzano's made crime so damn unattractive, nobody even thinks about it without getting sick. I heard you can lay a billfold in the middle of a sidewalk and you can come back a week later and it'll be right there, with everything still in it." "Um." "You know what the punishment is for stealing something?" "Nope." "The hook," he said. "No fines, no probation, no thirty days in jail. It's the hook. The hook for stealing, for murder, for arson, for treason, for rape, for being a peeping Tom. Break a law—any damn law at all—and it's the hook. Everybody can understand that, and San Lorenzo is the best-behaved country in the world." "What is the hook?" "They put up a gallows, see? Two posts and a cross beam. And then they take a great big kind of iron fishhook and they hang it down from the cross beam. Then they take somebody who's dumb enough to break the law, and they put the point of the hook in through one side of his belly and out the other and they let him go—and there he hangs, by God, one damn sorry law-breaker." Cat's Cradle