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Comment by arpstick | Hacker News Reader

a government installing a software without notice or consent onto their population's devices is not something a healthy functioning democracy does, it's what a psychotic paranoid despot does. if the Mass Gov truly wants to minimize harm this is the opposite of what needs to be done. all this will do is drive conspiracy theories and deepen a very legitimate mistrust in the institutions that plague the USA (which helped give rise to people like donald trump)

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>"if the Mass Gov truly wants to minimize harm this is the opposite of what needs to be done."

where is the actual evidence for this? Both Taiwan and South Korea deployed massive, digital tracking efforts to respond to covid often at the cell-provider/ infrastructure level so the entire population was covered whether they wanted to or not.

Nothing about this was despotic or paranoid, it was simply the correct, swift, and strong response to the situation at hand. Until half of Americans have voluntarily installed a tracing app on their phone, if they even know how to do it, we're five years into the pandemic.

Defaults matter. There's a nice example from organ donations in a study conducted by Johnson & Goldstein[1]. When you ask people to opt-in, even if you send everyone a letter personally, only 30% do. When you switch to opt-out, 90% stay in without any resources expended. I would like to think the first obligation of a healthy democracy is to the health of her people. What gives rise to despots is governments failing exactly at that, providng essential functions, being harmstrung by excessive checks and mistrust.

[1]http://www.dangoldstein.com/papers/DefaultsScience.pdf

defaults absolutely matter, which is why surveillance being the default is deeply troubling to me. I do not care what the justification flavor of the day is, it's not a good trend to normalize. all it takes is another donald trump type figure to abuse this for evil. hell even a 3rd party could if this was implemented poorly, which is an all too common occurrence.

In the USA, nothing is more permanent than a temporary government program, keep that in mind.

Critics of the current US administration have been labeled as white supremacists and terrorists. Many of them are currently held in solitary confinement. Most are held on the misdemeanor of trespassing in the Capitol Building.

>"...was beaten by a prison guard and left with permanent eye damage."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/13/capitol-rio...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/19/capitol-riot-defend...

That's the current climate surrounding a single politically charged incident. There's a long history of abuse, from the COINTEL program, extraordinary rendition, torture and current events. Yes, we should absolutely be concerned - regardless of the partisan takes.

>"...Arar protested that he only had a casual relationship with Almalki, having once worked with Almalki's brother at an Ottawa high-tech firm..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

in Taiwan, system base on everyone send one message to government when they into one shop or work site, and then if some infected one pass same site, government will send message to warn you. it don't need install anything and it is optional (although shop will refuse offer service...)

It's the power of defaults that make them easy to abuse. To the point of that study, Richard Thaler who has studied the subject extensively argues more easy mandated choice (i.e. you have to make a choice one way or another when you sign up for a drivers license). Opt-out is a sufficiently powerful default that it's reasonable to assume that many never made an actual reasoned decision to do so. For trivial matters, it may not matter much, but in the case of something like organ donation families can and have argued successfully that the deceased never actually made a choice in the case of opt-out.

You are merely arguing that it was worth it because you agree with the goal, not that it wasn't despotic or paranoid.

it was neither desponic nor paranoid. Paranoia is an irrational or delusional bout of fear. Thinking the cleaning crew in front of your house is secret agents trying to kidnap you is paranoia, taking measures against a pandemic is not, because the pandemic is real and deadly. In the same vein, despotism is the tyrannical and arbitrary exercise of power, not merely the exercise of power towards legitimate ends.

In fact if anyone is paranoid then it is the public every time the issue of governance and technology converge, because in particular in the US there exists a phobia both to technology as well as government.

taking measures against a pandemic is not, because the pandemic is real and deadly

The existence of a problem does not imply that any measures taken to address it are reasonable. Child pornography is real. Should the government secretly install an app that scans your photos and reports you if it finds anything suspicious?

because in particular in the US there exists a phobia both to technology as well as government

Surreptitiously installing tracking apps is not going to help with that.

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