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Possibly there should not be a front page article on the topic, though. With a title alleging worse than the facts substantiate.

Agree

Look, to make something productive out of it: a job seeker who has high level skills using LLM assistance will be much more valuable than one without the experience. Never mind your current company mangement's policies.

Making the laws apply to the police the same as other citizens is, at least in the US, unlikely.

To be this brings in another question when the discussion should be focused on to what extent general records should be open.


A lot of comments here dismiss the study for having a small N.

Exploratory research uses small N at the start. This kind of research can have value even if it is not conclusive.

Imagine the expense (and dominance of Big Research) if every study needed 100,000 participants to run.

If you don’t want to read exploratory studies, ignore them when they hit the headline news.

Other criticisms of this study (e.g., participants didn’t previously sleep with noise) seem more on the mark. I’m not an uncritical fan.


Bashing studies for having now N is common because it’s the easiest thing for non-scientists to criticize when they don’t like a study’s findings.

Scientists, on the other hand, know that low N does not necessarily reduce the validity or the value of a study.


Now it’s not just the government. The commercial data aggregation has also reached eyebrow-raising levels.

When private data sources are being used to drive government enforcement actions (ICE), I think the reality has gone beyond Snowden.


> > It's hard to have any empathy when the warning label was already on the box for all these products.

> These snooty takes where we're supposed to look down upon others for having reasonable assumptions about usage of their data are why it's so hard to get the general public to care about privacy.

In addition: it’s not just the Ring camera installer whose rights are being violated (to be optimistic), it’s everyone who walks past on the sidewalk.

Privacy is a public good.

And it’s so long gone nobody (in the US or UK at least) can see a way to get it back.


This argument justifies CCTV surveillance of all public places.

Is that what you intend to be arguing for? In any case, there needs to be more nuance in the discussion than a one-liner.

I think the quantity of surveillance matters. When it’s just a few places, then it’s a minor intrusion on liberty. When it’s a lot of places, it’s a major intrusion that will facilitate the (further) rise of authoritarianism.


> This argument justifies CCTV surveillance of all public places.

Well, yeah, I think that was super obvious, no?

> In any case, there needs to be more nuance in the discussion than a one-liner.

Not really. Super public busy places like train stations ought to be surveilled. The benefits far outweigh any cons.


There is far more nuance than this.

What counts as a "super public busy place" ? The airport? The bus terminal? The local library? All major roads that experience rush hour traffic?

Who is the person who says where the cutoff line is? What if that authority wants to move the line to include everything? Or nothing? Do they even need to provide notice to the public of their actions?

Who should be able to access to all this footage? Public? Government investigative branches only? What about the system administrators?

Does this footage require attestation to prove it's legitimacy in a world where AI can generate footage?

How long should this footage exist for? Do I have to trust not just current admins and their superiors but all the people who may be in those roles in perpetuity? IE do I have to trust people who haven't even been born yet?

Is it allowed to be centralised, so people can easily be tracked from one site to another for every step outside their house? Or should each site have separate data housing with access terms to match so that tracking a person is a significant task?

.. ..

There are a lot of concerns. You may argue that there isn't a lot of nuances because you have a set idea of how it should all go. But others may differ.


> There is far more nuance than this.

There's just....not. It's a pretty well established concept by now. For almost 50 years or so.

> What counts as a "super public busy place" ? The airport? The bus terminal? The local library? All major roads that experience rush hour traffic?

Yes to all of these.

> Who is the person who says where the cutoff line is?

Not a person, but a sound methodology ideally. Kind of like what we've mostly been doing even if it isn't formalized.

> What if that authority wants to move the line to include everything?

Yes, the slippery slope is a problem, agreed. That's why we need to be vigilant in responding to government plans.

> Do they even need to provide notice to the public of their actions?

In a civilized democracy, they should.

> Government investigative branches only?

Yes, pretty much.

> What about the system administrators?

Not if it can be avoided.

> Does this footage require attestation to prove it's legitimacy in a world where AI can generate footage?

No.

> How long should this footage exist for?

3 - 6 months is typically standard.

> Do I have to trust not just current admins and their superiors but all the people who may be in those roles in perpetuity? IE do I have to trust people who haven't even been born yet?

You have to trust the system is accountable.

> Is it allowed to be centralised,

Ideally, no.

> Or should each site have separate data housing with access terms to match so that tracking a person is a significant task?

Bingo.

> There are a lot of concerns. You may argue that there isn't a lot of nuances because you have a set idea of how it should all go. But others may differ.

I'd argue your concerns have already been addressed by current systems that have worked fine for decades.


> I'd argue your concerns have already been addressed by current systems that have worked fine for decades.

The issue is that times are changing. "Worked fine for decades" doesn't apply to the Ring Doorbell or Flock. Or that authorities exactly want to have all footage in the one place, from train stations too.

Modern computers allow for scaling of capabilities that are only tolerable at all when limited in number.

IE the capability to track an individual's every movement is tolerable if it is limited in number, has oversight, and only used by appropriate authorities against bad people that everyone can agree are bad.

But being able to track minority groups en masse as modern systems are capable of is clearly an issue.

I see your parameters to the above questions as mostly reasonable although I'd rather not have the cameras everywhere in the first place. But do you think even your reasonable seeming desires are being adhered to?

I don't.


I'm not arguing for mass surveillance, I'm arguing for keeping surveillance in busy places which as you admit has worked well for decades. I'm against the Ring/Flock dystopian nightmare as well.

> But do you think your desires are being adhered to?

No, but I think an apathetic population are the problem, and I don't know how to solve it.


I think we are largely in agreeance here.

It was the thing about "nuances" that bugged me mostly. The nuances determine whether the benefits outweigh the cost.

Appropriately managed isolated systems are fine. Dystopian nightmare is not.

.. and the apathy might doom us all. Thank you for an interesting thread of conversation.


> and the apathy might doom us all.

That, and the eagerness for misinformation that fits with preconceptions.

> Thank you for an interesting thread of conversation.

Likewise!


That’s what this ENTIRE conversation is about… the (ostensible) trade off between surveillance and security.

In the case of an attack, I’d wish for a gendarme not a recording that would let me relive the experience.


Right, and I was saying it's wrong not to want surveillance in a super public area like a train station.

A gendarme is worse in every way.


The gendarme might actually arrest the attacker. The security camera will do nothing (but record). And having the policeman standing there is about as much a deterrent as a "Smile--You're Being Recorded" sign.

> The gendarme might actually arrest the attacker.

So might the cops we already have in such places.

> The security camera will do nothing (but record).

Exactly as intended.

> And having the policeman standing there is about as much a deterrent as a "Smile--You're Being Recorded" sign.

This seems like a weird thing to say. Cops are more of a deterrent than a gendarme.


Assuming there was no /s there:

The US and I assume Europe have laws against "dumping" - selling a product for below cost - because it drives local competitors out of business. That is exactly what shipping containers full of clothes to Africa does.


I think GP was referring to donations, which are not subject to dumping rules AFAIK.

People living in the tropics don't need clothing suited for temperate climates.

People who live in temperate climates wear tshirts, underwear, and socks, if I'm not mistaken.

Then they won't take the donations, problem solved?

The problem is that they do and leave massive piles of winter clothing laying around as garbage.

The effect is the same though (well, worse), that was GP's point.

The only error in the whole post. I think it's more productive to ignore that and focus on the important stuff... which is about why this kind of market interference isn't going to work out the way a naive optimist would hope.

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