> Maybe having cameras around makes the average person feel safe?
Interesting point! Attempted interpretation: "I'm a person walking by a house that has a camera, and it makes me feel better knowing there's a recording of what's happening to me … in the event that I'm robbed/harassed/assaulted/etc." Also: no need for an alibi, when there's record of you being pretty much everywhere.
I wonder if anyone has studied whether cameras being present in communities increase the net level of trust with which people operate? I would assume the net benefit would be "everyone's less worried/suspicious, so operates with greater baseline trust."
This feels like similar territory as social media, where we (humans) tend to think the system operates with the same set of rules/principles as normal socialization, but vastly underestimate the scale in which we're now operating.