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man, these guys bungled their PR so, so hard. What they should have done is pre-seeded a ton of stories about flock catching some notorious criminal, helping so

by Hasz 20d ago

man, these guys bungled their PR so, so hard. What they should have done is pre-seeded a ton of stories about flock catching some notorious criminal, helping solve xyz serious crimes, helping solve abc minor nuisance issue crimes, and maybe some lines about reducing direct law enforcement interactions. On the flip side, let Axon, Motorola take some of the heat, paint your enemies as "defund the police", and stop being so obviously branded. Take a page out of Phillip Morris/Altria playbook and keep a lower profile. Instead, they've managed to unite left and right in hatred. Clown show.

cucumber3732842 20d ago
Their problem is they believed their own bullshit and thought they were offering people a good deal that basically amounted to "the government 1984s you more than they already do but your package thief gets arrested, maybe". Ignoring the fact that that deal is not necessarily good, if they had been slightly scummier, not given two shits about actually reducing petty crimes against the people and instead set out to help municipalities collect civil fines (which have basically no 4th-8th amendment protections these days) they probably could have gotten away without scrutiny for a very long time and gotten their systems deeply entrenched. The useful idiots would've eaten it right up with the flimsiest of pretexts so long as each segment of useful idiots was peddled to individually. "The truck we saw carrying 2-tons of waste tires away from your tire shop is not owned by an entity on the state approved list, pay up" "We saw you leaving home depot with a water heater but you didn't pull a permit, prove it didn't go into your house or pay the fine" "we saw your 2004 Altima emit a puff of blue leaving a light. Per vehicle code XYZ any vehicle that emmits a visible cloud cannot pass emissions inspection, submit proof of passing withing 30d or your resigstration is revoked" If they had done that a lot of people would have eaten it up and asked for more. But nope, they believed their own BS and built a system for "real" law enforcement. And of course that leads to a bunch of bad interactions with cops and the public doesn't like that.
slopinthebag 19d ago
Nah, what they should have done is called themselves the UK government and then all of HN would be praising them instead
johnnyanmac 19d ago
Data centers in a nutshell too. It's an absolute clown show of a PR event. Pretty clear who they laid off and got advice from to have bipartisan rejection from such a politically polarized population. I suppose it's like the Cabinet today. The one shimmering light of hope in this darkness is the utter stupidity in execution. This situation should have been a slam dunk for any semi-competent organization.
- Hasz 19d ago
  yeah, another colossal bungle. For the price that most of these DCs are going up at, offering a rebate to the local community on their electricity bills should have been a fairly easy and cheap (relative to the re-siting and planning delays!).

by Hasz 20d ago

cucumber3732842 20d ago

Their problem is they believed their own bullshit and thought they were offering people a good deal that basically amounted to "the government 1984s you more than they already do but your package thief gets arrested, maybe". Ignoring the fact that that deal is not necessarily good, if they had been slightly scummier, not given two shits about actually reducing petty crimes against the people and instead set out to help municipalities collect civil fines (which have basically no 4th-8th amendment protections these days) they probably could have gotten away without scrutiny for a very long time and gotten their systems deeply entrenched. The useful idiots would've eaten it right up with the flimsiest of pretexts so long as each segment of useful idiots was peddled to individually. "The truck we saw carrying 2-tons of waste tires away from your tire shop is not owned by an entity on the state approved list, pay up" "We saw you leaving home depot with a water heater but you didn't pull a permit, prove it didn't go into your house or pay the fine" "we saw your 2004 Altima emit a puff of blue leaving a light. Per vehicle code XYZ any vehicle that emmits a visible cloud cannot pass emissions inspection, submit proof of passing withing 30d or your resigstration is revoked" If they had done that a lot of people would have eaten it up and asked for more. But nope, they believed their own BS and built a system for "real" law enforcement. And of course that leads to a bunch of bad interactions with cops and the public doesn't like that.

slopinthebag 19d ago

Nah, what they should have done is called themselves the UK government and then all of HN would be praising them instead

johnnyanmac 19d ago

Data centers in a nutshell too. It's an absolute clown show of a PR event. Pretty clear who they laid off and got advice from to have bipartisan rejection from such a politically polarized population. I suppose it's like the Cabinet today. The one shimmering light of hope in this darkness is the utter stupidity in execution. This situation should have been a slam dunk for any semi-competent organization.

Hasz 19d ago
yeah, another colossal bungle. For the price that most of these DCs are going up at, offering a rebate to the local community on their electricity bills should have been a fairly easy and cheap (relative to the re-siting and planning delays!).