7 ms·

flock is the most heinous reflection of the ills of our current socioeconomic structure. absolutely nobody should be okay with mass surveillance, much less mass

by j3s 9mo ago

flock is the most heinous reflection of the ills of our current socioeconomic structure. absolutely nobody should be okay with mass surveillance, much less mass surveillance enabled by a private company.

simlevesque 9mo ago
It's what happens when we rank private property over human lives. We deserve this.
- esseph 9mo ago
  No, we do not "deserve this". The universe has no concept of "deserve".
  - riversflow 9mo ago
    People are part of the universe, and they have a concept of deserving.
  - overfeed 9mo ago
    "Deserving" not in the sense of dharma/karma, but as a natural consequence of prior actions.
- ordinaryradical 9mo ago
  Agree. If you find yourself sympathetic to Flock, you should ask yourself: do we have a right to any kind of privacy in a public space or is public space by definition a denial of any sort of privacy? This is the inherent premise in this technology that's problematic. In Japan, for instance, there are very strict laws about broadcasting people's faces in public because there is a cultural assumption that one deserves anonymity as a form of privacy, regardless of the public visibility of their person. I think I'd prefer to live in a place where I have some sort of recourse over when and how I'm recorded. Something more than "avoid that public intersection if you don't like it."
- Ajedi32 9mo ago
  I think you have it backwards. This is what happens when we rank human lives over human freedom. The argument for these cameras is that they save lives. The argument against them is that they destroy freedom.
  - docjay 9mo ago
    I don’t know that I’ve heard the “saves lives” argument for this type of camera. How would that play out?
    - Ajedi32 9mo ago
      That's easy. Person gets kidnapped, government surveillance camera helps police find the car before the kidnapper kills them. Or, probably more common: murder happens, government surveillance camera helps police find murderer and jail them before they kill someone else. That's why these cameras are so prevalent, the case for them is extremely obvious and easy to make (give police more tools to stop bad guys), while the case against them is a lot more subtle (human freedom, government abuse, expectations of privacy, risk of data breaches, etc).
      - ryandrake 9mo ago
        > Person gets kidnapped, government surveillance camera helps police find the car before the kidnapper kills them. Or, probably more common: murder happens, government surveillance camera helps police find murderer and jail them before they kill someone else. It's a good steelman/devil's advocate of their position, but I wonder if proponents realize how much wishful thinking drives those supposed outcomes.
        Ajedi32 9mo ago
        I don't think it's wishful thinking. Flock advertises how many actual, real-world cases their cameras have contributed to solving, and even just reading news reports on murder trials you'll often see comments like "suspect's car was caught on camera traveling such and such direction" in the timeline of events. The question isn't whether these cameras help law enforcement. Of course they do. The question is whether that's sufficient justification for continuous government surveillance of the public movements of millions of law abiding citizens.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- 0x1ch 9mo ago
  You can both have a desire to defend your peace, while also being against mass surveillance.
  - overfeed 9mo ago
    Gp specifies how we rank those 2 is the issue, and didn't say they are mutually exclusive
- nullc 9mo ago
  Surveillance technology doesn't stop property crime, so it isn't a tradeoff question. The necessary and sufficient steps to stop property crime are: 1. Secure the stuff. 2. Take repeat criminals off the street. Against random 'crime of opportunity' with new parties nothing but proactive security is particularly effective because even if you catch the person after the fact the damage is already done. The incentive to commit a crime comes from the combination of the opportunity and the deterrence-- and not everyone is responsive to deterrence so controlling the opportunity is critical. Against repeated or organized criminals nothing but taking them out of society is very effective. Because they are repeated extensive surveillance is not required-- eventually they'll be caught even if not in the first instance. If you fail to take them off the streets no amount of surveillance will ever help, as they'll keep doing it again and again. Many repeat criminals are driven by mental illness, stupidity, emotional regulation, or sometimes desperation. They're committing crimes at all because for whatever reason they're already not responding to all the incentives not to. Adding more incentives not to has a minor effect at most. The conspiratorially minded might wonder if the failure to enforce and incarcerate for property crime in places like California isn't part of a plot to manufacture consent for totalitarian surveillance. But sadly, life isn't a movie plot-- it would be easier to fight against a plot rather than just collective failure and incompetence. In any case, many many people have had the experience of having video or know exactly who the criminal is only to have police, prosecutors, or the court do absolutely nothing about it. But even when they do-- it pretty much never undoes the harm of the crime.
  - pandaman 9mo ago
    Can you explain in more detail how the repeat criminals get caught in your scheme? I can see how surveillance could help in identifying the criminal, finding him or her, and as evidence of crime in the trial, but what exactly happens without it that gets them identified, found and convicted? As of now clearance rate of property crimes is <15% according to a quick search.
    - nullc 9mo ago
      There is already lots of surveillance and was even before modern technology. I'd agree that having some at all is of value, my argument was that you don't need much past that to get what we need and certainly don't need the kind of pervasive surveillance that some want: It won't move the needle on crime much past a baseline level but it will enable abuses that are much worse than the level of property crime we see today. Authoritarian governments are the number one mass murderer throughout human history by a wide margin. Low clearance rates for property crime are significantly because nothing is even done much of the time -- police just take a report and often won't even follow up on an obvious lead (including stuff like "find my phone says my thousand dollar phone is in that house over there"). But in any case to more directly answer your question: If the clearance rate is 15% then they have a 90% chance of being caught after ~14 crimes.
fuckflock 9mo ago
[flagged]
varispeed 9mo ago
[flagged]
- vkou 9mo ago
  > We have sleep walked into it. We didn't sleep walk into it, we ran into it because of poor basic civics education and a cynical media cycle that biases towards making everyone terrified of crime. The latter is driven by two forces - a profit motive (sensational, gruesome stories sell), and a political motive (media carrying water for far-right-wing candidates loves to keep you scared on this issue). The optimal level of crime or unsolved crime in a society is not zero, but a lot of people will look at you like you've got three eyes if you tell them that. Talk to them for another ten minutes, and most of them will see why what you say makes sense, but that's not a conversation their television will ever have with them.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >This is clear fascism, but people are too afraid to admit. We have sleep walked into it. >With such surveillance, administration can [...] Have you missed all the cries of "fascism" back in 2016/2017? The problem isn't "people are too afraid to admit". It's that "wolf!" was cried too many times and people tuned it out. Ironically this invocation "fascism" is arguably also crying wolf. From wikipedia: >Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Is an ANPR network terrible for privacy? Yes, obviously. Is it authoritarian? Maybe[1]. Is everything vaguely authoritarian "fascism"? No. [1] Consider cell phones. They're terrible for privacy, but nobody would seriously consider them "authoritarian".
  - goda90 9mo ago
    >Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. These things don't just happen overnight. It's not crying wolf when you see the wolf on the horizon running towards you.

by j3s 9mo ago

simlevesque 9mo ago

It's what happens when we rank private property over human lives. We deserve this.

esseph 9mo ago
No, we do not "deserve this". The universe has no concept of "deserve".
- riversflow 9mo ago
  People are part of the universe, and they have a concept of deserving.
- overfeed 9mo ago
  "Deserving" not in the sense of dharma/karma, but as a natural consequence of prior actions.
ordinaryradical 9mo ago
Agree. If you find yourself sympathetic to Flock, you should ask yourself: do we have a right to any kind of privacy in a public space or is public space by definition a denial of any sort of privacy? This is the inherent premise in this technology that's problematic. In Japan, for instance, there are very strict laws about broadcasting people's faces in public because there is a cultural assumption that one deserves anonymity as a form of privacy, regardless of the public visibility of their person. I think I'd prefer to live in a place where I have some sort of recourse over when and how I'm recorded. Something more than "avoid that public intersection if you don't like it."
Ajedi32 9mo ago
I think you have it backwards. This is what happens when we rank human lives over human freedom. The argument for these cameras is that they save lives. The argument against them is that they destroy freedom.
- docjay 9mo ago
  I don’t know that I’ve heard the “saves lives” argument for this type of camera. How would that play out?
  - Ajedi32 9mo ago
    That's easy. Person gets kidnapped, government surveillance camera helps police find the car before the kidnapper kills them. Or, probably more common: murder happens, government surveillance camera helps police find murderer and jail them before they kill someone else. That's why these cameras are so prevalent, the case for them is extremely obvious and easy to make (give police more tools to stop bad guys), while the case against them is a lot more subtle (human freedom, government abuse, expectations of privacy, risk of data breaches, etc).
    - ryandrake 9mo ago
      > Person gets kidnapped, government surveillance camera helps police find the car before the kidnapper kills them. Or, probably more common: murder happens, government surveillance camera helps police find murderer and jail them before they kill someone else. It's a good steelman/devil's advocate of their position, but I wonder if proponents realize how much wishful thinking drives those supposed outcomes.
      - Ajedi32 9mo ago
        I don't think it's wishful thinking. Flock advertises how many actual, real-world cases their cameras have contributed to solving, and even just reading news reports on murder trials you'll often see comments like "suspect's car was caught on camera traveling such and such direction" in the timeline of events. The question isn't whether these cameras help law enforcement. Of course they do. The question is whether that's sufficient justification for continuous government surveillance of the public movements of millions of law abiding citizens.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
0x1ch 9mo ago
You can both have a desire to defend your peace, while also being against mass surveillance.
- overfeed 9mo ago
  Gp specifies how we rank those 2 is the issue, and didn't say they are mutually exclusive
nullc 9mo ago
Surveillance technology doesn't stop property crime, so it isn't a tradeoff question. The necessary and sufficient steps to stop property crime are: 1. Secure the stuff. 2. Take repeat criminals off the street. Against random 'crime of opportunity' with new parties nothing but proactive security is particularly effective because even if you catch the person after the fact the damage is already done. The incentive to commit a crime comes from the combination of the opportunity and the deterrence-- and not everyone is responsive to deterrence so controlling the opportunity is critical. Against repeated or organized criminals nothing but taking them out of society is very effective. Because they are repeated extensive surveillance is not required-- eventually they'll be caught even if not in the first instance. If you fail to take them off the streets no amount of surveillance will ever help, as they'll keep doing it again and again. Many repeat criminals are driven by mental illness, stupidity, emotional regulation, or sometimes desperation. They're committing crimes at all because for whatever reason they're already not responding to all the incentives not to. Adding more incentives not to has a minor effect at most. The conspiratorially minded might wonder if the failure to enforce and incarcerate for property crime in places like California isn't part of a plot to manufacture consent for totalitarian surveillance. But sadly, life isn't a movie plot-- it would be easier to fight against a plot rather than just collective failure and incompetence. In any case, many many people have had the experience of having video or know exactly who the criminal is only to have police, prosecutors, or the court do absolutely nothing about it. But even when they do-- it pretty much never undoes the harm of the crime.
- pandaman 9mo ago
  Can you explain in more detail how the repeat criminals get caught in your scheme? I can see how surveillance could help in identifying the criminal, finding him or her, and as evidence of crime in the trial, but what exactly happens without it that gets them identified, found and convicted? As of now clearance rate of property crimes is <15% according to a quick search.
  - nullc 9mo ago
    There is already lots of surveillance and was even before modern technology. I'd agree that having some at all is of value, my argument was that you don't need much past that to get what we need and certainly don't need the kind of pervasive surveillance that some want: It won't move the needle on crime much past a baseline level but it will enable abuses that are much worse than the level of property crime we see today. Authoritarian governments are the number one mass murderer throughout human history by a wide margin. Low clearance rates for property crime are significantly because nothing is even done much of the time -- police just take a report and often won't even follow up on an obvious lead (including stuff like "find my phone says my thousand dollar phone is in that house over there"). But in any case to more directly answer your question: If the clearance rate is 15% then they have a 90% chance of being caught after ~14 crimes.

fuckflock 9mo ago

[flagged]

varispeed 9mo ago

[flagged]

vkou 9mo ago
> We have sleep walked into it. We didn't sleep walk into it, we ran into it because of poor basic civics education and a cynical media cycle that biases towards making everyone terrified of crime. The latter is driven by two forces - a profit motive (sensational, gruesome stories sell), and a political motive (media carrying water for far-right-wing candidates loves to keep you scared on this issue). The optimal level of crime or unsolved crime in a society is not zero, but a lot of people will look at you like you've got three eyes if you tell them that. Talk to them for another ten minutes, and most of them will see why what you say makes sense, but that's not a conversation their television will ever have with them.
gruez 9mo ago
>This is clear fascism, but people are too afraid to admit. We have sleep walked into it. >With such surveillance, administration can [...] Have you missed all the cries of "fascism" back in 2016/2017? The problem isn't "people are too afraid to admit". It's that "wolf!" was cried too many times and people tuned it out. Ironically this invocation "fascism" is arguably also crying wolf. From wikipedia: >Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Is an ANPR network terrible for privacy? Yes, obviously. Is it authoritarian? Maybe[1]. Is everything vaguely authoritarian "fascism"? No. [1] Consider cell phones. They're terrible for privacy, but nobody would seriously consider them "authoritarian".
- goda90 9mo ago
  >Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. These things don't just happen overnight. It's not crying wolf when you see the wolf on the horizon running towards you.