zlacker

>>theamk+(OP)
Does anyone else find it painfully ironic that the one CO cop said "You can't get a breath of fresh air in or out of that place without us knowing," [0], in light of the George Floyd BLM rallying cry "I can't breathe!" and the common metaphor describing surveilance states as "suffocating"?

Like what are we doing as a society? Stop trying to build the surveilance nexus from sci fi. I don't want to live in a zero-crime world [1]. It's not worth it. Safety third, there is always gonna be some risk.

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/flock-cameras-lead-col...

[1] Edit to add: if this raises hackles, I encourage folks to think through what true zero crime (or maybe lets call it six-nines lawfulness) entails. If we had literal precrime, would that stop 99.9999% of crime? (hint: read the book/watch the movie)

>>kortex+9j
Fair warning that this is a deeply unpopular argument in municipal politics.

>>tptace+Al
I think that's kinda the point?

If public servants funded by taxpayers don't like it, maybe they shouldn't be forcing it on the populace and breaking the forth amendment.

>>TheCra+Vn
It's unpopular with residents. Residents do not have the attitude towards crime reflected in the comment I replied to. It's a very online thing to say.

>>tptace+qo
Yeah perhaps it's a bit inflammatory and terminally online of me to say. But it's true. Zero crime means zero crime. Minority report levels of surveilance and policing.

What stance would you recommend? You're one of the folks here i recognize immediatedy and have a wealth of wisdom.

>>kortex+Tu
I would recommend not campaigning for public policy interventions on a premise of "some crime is OK".

>>tptace+rv
You're 100% correct, and in fact I think you've touched upon partly explaining why fascism and authoritarianism is not just on the doorstep, it's got a foot in the door (without a warrant) and is asking^W trying to force its way in saying "it's just a quick search, you have nothing to hide cause you're not doing anything wrong, are you?"

Realism isn't very palatable. Most folks want to stay in their little rat race lane and push their little skinner box lever and get their little variable interval algorithmic treato, and they are content with that. That's fine. It's just a shame they gotta tighten the noose around absolutely everyone else for a morsel of safety.

>>kortex+wx
I don't agree with basically any of this. I don't think people who oppose crime, or recoil from arguments suggesting deliberate tradeoffs involving more crime, are stuck in little skinner boxes.

>>tptace+0B
I'm probably not doing a great job of getting my point across, and most of that is on me. Let me try to clarify.

Every aspect of cybernetics (whether it be engineering, society/politics, biology) involves deliberate tradeoffs. In metaphor, we have a big knob with "liberty/crime" on one side and "surveillance/safety" on the other. It's highly nonlinear and there are diminishing returns at both extrema. Everyone (subconsciously) has some ideal point where they think that crime-o-stat should be set.

I'm saying don't turn it up to 11, and it's already set pretty high. It's increasingly technologically possible, and I think it's a bad thing to chase the long tail. I'm pretty happy with where we are at the present, but corporations keep marketing we need more cameras, more detection, more ALPRs, more algos, more predictive policing, more safety, who doesn't want to be more safe? I think it's very precarious.

I reiterate: it's uncomfortable, but I don't want to live in a world with zero crimes because everyone has probably committed crimes without even knowing it. The costs, both fiscal and in terms of civil liberties, of chasing ever-decreasing-crime are far higher than finding some stable setpoint that balances privacy and liberty with measures that justly deter crime. Let us not let the cure become worse than the disease.