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Comment by fusslo | Hacker News Reader

I think I agree with this sentiment most. I am having trouble articulating it. I think wearing smart glasses in some situations is on a scale between rude, offensive, and wrong. I think that's what culture teaches us about what is and what isn't acceptable behavior, right? Like some places teach us it's rude to speak over each-other. Here in New England it is rude not to.

I am 100% on board with calling smart glasses "Pervert glasses" if worn in situations that call for it

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> I think wearing smart glasses in some situations is on a scale between rude, offensive, and wrong.

I think we should really make a distinction between products that do and do not have cameras. Most people would probably be fine with the 'smart' aspects of it if it didn't have any video recording capabilities. On the other hand, most of the average people specifically want these things to be able to record videos, so maybe hoping for such devices is a non-starter.

What situations call for "Pervert glasses?"

Wearing them in a locker room or at a pool party or at the beach or really anywhere you might be likely to catch a recording of someone in a state of undress that they wouldn't want you to have a recording of?

it feels like theyre really designed for people that dont need glasses.

i dont want to have a camera stuck to my face that i dont really control in order to see

I think maybe I in-artfully wrote it - I mean: there are situations when wearing smart glasses should be labelled 'pervert glasses'. Not that there are situations that require wearing of the glasses

They're just being intentionally obtuse.

Active duty police officers. Anything that applies to bodycams should apply to other public recording devices.

The workers at Meta who watch their video feeds are the perverts.

I think eg police and military personnel should be required to wear cameras while on duty and interacting with people (So not during their whole shift, but whenever they're knowingly entering an interaction)

This may be a body camera or a camera built into glasses. That is a very legit usecase as far as I'm concerned.

There are other professions in which such a device would be a net benefit, that was just a simple example.

there are already laws in place requiring police body cameras -- why would they need to wear flimsy glasses instead?

what would these offer that can't already be done w/ their existing solutions, outside of streaming data to evil megacorps?

I understood this comment chain to be about the technology archetype of smart glasses with cameras in them, not about Meta glasses.

If it was about the latter then I'd agree that there is no usecase for them

I haven't seen anyone stop to ask why any situation period calls for wearing a secret recording device (other than police, military, etc.)? If you want to record something without your hands, there are GoPros or small devices you can wear on your head or clothing. Glasses are just the one socially acceptable accessory, other than hats, in which you can hide the fact that you're recording someone and people are less likely to call you out on it since, ostensibly, people wear glasses because they have a disability. If these glasses weren't built for perverts then they would loudly proclaim or indicate in some way that they're capable of recording people.

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