zlacker

>>amarch+(OP)
It appears that the kosher way of doing this by US standards is to partner with a for-profit company(ehm Palantir, Meta, Google etc.) to do it for you or you become a surveillance state.

Not saying to bash on US, it's just a curiosity of mine. In a similar way USA&UK diverge from most EU by not issuing national ID cards and not having central resident registries but then having powerful surveillance organizations that do that anyway just illegally(Obama apologized when they were caught).

I don't say that Europeans are any better, just different approaches to achieve the same thing. The Euros just appear to be more open and more direct with it.

The tech is there, the desire to have knowledge on what is going on is there and the desire to act on these to do good/bad is there and always has been like that. Now that it's much easier and feasible, my European instinct say that let's have this thing but have it openly and governed by clear rules.

The American instincts appear to say that let's not have it but have it with extra steps within a business model where it can be commercialized and the government can then can have it clandestinely to do the dirty work.

IMHO it is also the reason why extremist governments in US can do decade worth of work of shady things in few months and get away with it when in Europe that stuff actually takes decades and consumes the whole career of a politician to change a country in any way.

Also, the Brits are usually in between of those two extremes.

>>mrtksn+Su
Honestly a pretty good point, the US already has "facial recognition vans" on the road in the form of Waymos that will provide video to police upon request. In most states, I think police could also just buy a Tesla, have an officer drive it around and set up a system to continuously upload video to a facial recognition service.

>>burkam+Zy
Right, also regulations on data collection and processing in America are much more relax anyway which results in proliferation of abundant data collection for business purposes and this moves the barrier to "data is collected and being processed but you can't touch unless for profit". In Europe the barriers are on the collection and processing level.

This perverse desire for commercialization is almost comical. It is so effective that I feel like America will be the first country to implement a form of communism once they figure out the business model and produce profit charts showing promising growth expectations.

The American businesses are already coming up with stuff like "sharing economy", billionaires re-invent the metro and call it hyperloop or communal housing and call it AirBnB, public transport and call it Uber :) Publicly traded corporations that are not making any profits from the services they provide and yet providing value for the customers which are often also the owners through stock trading.

What a fascinating country. Being free of baggage and tradition and hacking around a few principles is so cool and terrifying at the same time. Nothing is sacred, there are no taboos and everything is possible.

>>mrtksn+KE
Musk didnt try the hyperloop to be altruistic

He did it to kill any chance of the state improving the train/tram network so that Tesla cars would have less competition for public transport

>>simmer+Ab1
Yep. My city did a deal with Hyperloop to build an express airport train instead of contracting with a European or Japanese company. Hyperloop pulled out and now there is no train, what a surprise.

You might ask "why don't they just re-bid the contract?" Answer: The new 'progressive' city government is opposed to building a train for 'rich people' since there's already a non-express metro that goes through some of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the city. Of course no businesspeople use it and they all take Ubers (many of which are Teslas)

>>projec+K14
Are you talking about Chicago? An express train sounds great, they should absolutely build one, but I think you're being a little harsh on the existing train. By America's (very low) standards it is quite convenient. It is already much faster and cheaper than driving, I have never even considered taking an Uber and I'm not sure it would be worth paying much more for an express train.

>>burkam+aB4
Correct, Chicago. The city's even already bored the station downtown as part of another project, so there's a massive underground cavern in the middle of downtown currently going unused.

The last time I took the Blue Line to the airport it was indeed fast and convenient - but dealing with luggage was kind of annoying, and there was a guy smoking weed on the train. If I were traveling for business there's no way I would use the Blue Line unless it was peak rush hour, and indeed most business travelers don't. Getting weed smoke on your work clothes is a less than ideal way to start a trip, nor is getting sweaty in your work clothes from hauling luggage around the station.

Thus the case for an express train - it would capture those price insensitive business travelers. You could charge $20 a ticket and it would still be a significant savings over Uber. Heathrow Express in London is like this and it seems to work well.