Hacker News Reader

Comment by janpot | Hacker News Reader

Good, teach children they're being tracked as early as possible. Turn them into good citizens of the surveillance state. Maybe we can share the data to some advertising companies, to improve their ads experience throughout the day. Turn them into good citizens of the consumerism state.

Edit: I'm sorry for the sarcasm, these kinds of products make me very sad.

View on HN

Who is so delusional to think they are so superior to other humans as to think that the others should be constantly tracked and watched by them?

The damaging effects of that surveillance are similar to that of denied freedom of expression which heavily affects the thinking and development process of humans.

It's not logically sound to support freedom of expression and surveillance at the same time.

Helicopter parents.

And who said humans are logical? But even setting aside the delusional, the superior, and the illogical, the largest group are ignorant or apathetic.

I know it's cathartic to write people off as delusional, but I think it's more instructive to consider the behavioral science / game theory underlying peoples choices.

Surveillance cameras everywhere are bad enough, now we want to bug our children? This madness needs to end.

Watched people are not free people.

Does a child have a smartphone? Congratulations, they're being tracked everywhere they go.

Surveillance cameras are already in most infant's rooms and even sometimes cribs.

That's a bit of a special case. Infants don't understand the concept of privacy, and you're not ruining a baby's future childhood by keeping an eye on their breathing via private video feed. You can't really educate an infant into not spontaneously dying so they sort of need constant surveillance until they can think and speak on their own.

>Infants don't understand the concept of privacy

I'm not sure this is limited to infants, though I realize it isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. People don't realize how they're being tracked by the devices they carry around, or the kinds of data they're willingly giving up. And even if it is explained, it doesn't seem to sink in that there is a wide-open window into their lives through which certain entities can easily peer.

So you think SIDS can be effectively addressed by continuous visual monitoring? Do you remotely monitor their vitals as well?

I debate your point that you are not running their future; you're setting up the foundation for both parent and child that this is normal and to be expected. Also the assumption of privacy is tenuous given this experience and all the other terrible IoT implementations that have come to light

Surveillance cameras are already in most infant's rooms

Do you know this is true?

Or do you just... "think" it's true?

I think this poster is talking about baby monitors. The new ones let you view your kids from any phone or tablet on your account. With many of these devices, that image/audio gets sent to a remote server and then back to your house. Very few keep this information on your local network even if both devices are on the same Wi-Fi.

That is very troubling.

I'm just curious how many commenters in this thread have children themselves? It would be interesting to see a poll showing the split between parents/non-parents.

From the time they get on the school bus and return home, they’re under surveillance. The majority of current-gen parents would expect this when their kids use public institutions.

HN view of privacy is quaint. The first cadre of post-911 and FB users must be 35-40 now, and they didn’t care.

Or you could just use it occasionally when you want to give your kids a bit more freedom than normal, but you're still a bit of a worrier. There is a state between complete lack of oversight and Black Mirror's Arkangel.

Why such a low opinion of children? A lot of us grew up in public schools, taught to conform, etc, and ... well, look how well we are conforming? No dissent here, not one bit ;-)

Funny how most of us who grew up on the internet that included crap like Ogrish, Bumfights, hardcore porn ads, Newgrounds, hentai, etc., turned into everyday citizens rather than low-lifes and criminals.

There's survivorship bias since low-lifes and criminals are less likely to be active here.

For one of the worst examples, the 'elf on a shelf' phenomena has now got utterly out of hand - https://www.google.com/search?tbm=shop&q=elf+santa+camera

Also teach them not to write fake reviews or any fakery on the iNet! Let's work to make the Internet great again....

Reply on news.ycombinator.com