Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

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I think the answer is better technology, not less of it.

This stuff is more easily available in rudimentary systems. Consider the model of recording everything and just dumping tapes somewhere. Much harder to monitor abuse than a well designed system with an audit log. Better yet, have computers process the data and only expose what's absolutely necessary. Technology lets you do that.

But I want to push back against this idea that we have anything resembling a police or surveillance state. Nothing will dispel this myth more than an experience reporting a crime to police. Think about thefts in drug stores. They have security guards, cameras, security devices, etc, but every day the same group of people walk in and walk out with stolen goods. Everyone knows who they are, but police do absolutely nothing to stop them, because there is no political will. So the solution is to put deodorant behind lock and key and close down stores in high crime areas.

So besides these one off creepy stories of people abusing the system, this stuff amounts to nothing. I want to use technology more and perhaps our murder clearance rate can stop going down.

https://www.murderdata.org/2021/10/homicide-clearance-in-uni...

Heart disease accounts for 22% of all deaths in the US; cancer is 19.8%; injuries like car accidents come in third at about 7.8%. Homicide doesn't make it anywhere near the top 10.

When it comes to firearms, the vast majority of deaths are suicides with homicides being about a third of that. And the majority of homicides are domestic violence which usually happen inside the home.

The fact that the homicide clearance rate has decreased DESPITE turning our entire society into one of the most advanced surveillance states in human history pisses me off. That's MY tax money going to subsidize these companies that are taking away ALL OF OUR rights. In 2021 China's supreme court banned the use of facial recognition technologies in public places and then further strengthened that ban in 2025. They also got the PIPL in 2021 which is an even stronger version of the GDPR. In these respects, the US has regressed beyond The People's Republic of mf'ing China.

Your answer is to give these companies MORE of my money. I think the answer is to force them to pay us all back and let us reinvest it into problems that are actually relevant to anyone who doesn't obsessively consume True Crime podcasts

My quality of life is affected by crime. Sure no one is going to kill me. But why should we accept crime? It's easy to solve. Arrest people and keep them locked up, especially for anti-social crimes. Just yesterday, Noemi Guzman, took a large kitchen knife from a Walmart, kidnapped a 3yo and nearly stabbed him. In 2024, she was involved in another violent incident (including attacking her father and breaking into a church) and was found not responsible by reason of insanity. So too insane to throw in jail so we let her out in the street?

My answer is to arrest and prosecute the people that are destroying polite society. I don't get your point in China. I could care less.

Noemi Guzman does not have nearly the impact on your life that your neighbor driving a car with the catalytic converter removed or the CEO of a company that has a facility near you that made the decision to cut corners on holding tanks for their trichloroethylene

Things that affect my life:

My children going to a park with regular drug users with convenient needle drop (remove needle drops and arrest the handful of drug users that hang around children's parks with dangerous drugs on them)

Package thefts (sting operation to arrest the handful of people organizing these thefts)

Crazy people on subway (end "showtime" and people sleeping on the train)

People driving dangerously (cameras)

Smell of weed everywhere (don't allow smoking weed in public)

But I guess the few random fully avoidable deaths is acceptable because its not that often? Kind of like a child sacrifice we have to endure because its somehow compassionate to let crazy people roam the streets and assault people randomly?

None of this involves corporate CEOs and is relatively simple to solve.

If we want to reduce avoidable deaths, you can get a lot more bang for your buck investing in almost ANYTHING other than this extremely rare event. We've already invested way too much of it. And you're paying for it with MY taxes

You are overindexing on it because you watch too much TV.

Your kids would be a lot safer and better off if we moved some of our money away from surveillance and put it into cleaning up superfund sites on the NPL

https://epa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=...

Look at this map and count how many superfund sites are within a 10 mile radius of you

There's no buck here. You just enforce the law and prosecute. They're already in the system being arrested for the umpteenth time. Just leave them in prison, society would improve considerably.

Cops already exist, they are just told they can't enforce the law.

you will not be better off in a police state. And you do not get to achieve your fantasy on everyone else's dime

The fact that the police won't use surveillance data in a way you would consider good and effective does not mean you don't live in a surveillance state.

One of the key aspects of police and surveillance states is that the incentives are structured so that the policing and surveillance need not be done with the interest of public welfare in mind. As you said there is no political will.

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