Human behavior that tends to self-imprison on a large scale is fascinating to me.
In the west we see communities opting in to self surveillance 100% of the time, in China it can be literally having your door welded shut so you stay at home.
It all stems from the desire to control other people’s behavior to varying degrees. This desire is probably tied to a survival trait, but more often it is to satisfy something else.
Who in this program is surveilling or imprisoning themselves?
Having a camera on your house, pointed into the street, is the opposite of self-surveillance. It's a way to surveil people in a public thoroughfare. Some of those people happen to be thieves who steal things from homes and cars, and if they get caught by video surveillance, that's great.
What exactly do the neighborhood residents lose by participating in this surveillance? It's only an upside for them -- they might be able to catch the thieves, with no loss of privacy for themselves.
... So nobody should put up security cameras outside their house? That's what these are, that's it. In such a situation most people would consider security cameras a pretty good investment.
I think it's also worth considering what can happen if there aren't cameras - eye witnesses suck. What if someone (or more than one person) claims to have seen you walking by a house that got robbed, and there's no video to prove your innocence? If people are hyper-aware that crime is happening they're going to be paying extra attention, while probably still doing a very bad job of determining what's actually going on.
Or it could be that humans don't respond well to uncontrolled crime. Unless you have experienced crime directed to you, it is easy to judge other's reactions.
If you let privacy rights be preserved by democracy, they will not be preserved, as the vast majority of people have:
a) not much to lose from secret information being divulged
b) not much secret information in the first place
It is really only a tiny minority that actually practically need privacy rights: prominent people, public figures, the wealthy, highly attractive people, alternative lifestyles, political or labor organizers, those speaking truth to power, et c.
We are a very small segment of the population by real numbers. Most people dgaf about privacy because they don't have to, so they never will.
...It is really only a tiny minority that actually practically need privacy rights
Just about everyone needs privacy rights and most care about those rights for themselves. Unfortunately many are very willing to sacrifice other people's rights if they are told it will make them safer or protect the children, etc. (If someone does claim they don't care about privacy since 'they have nothing to hide', ask them for their medical records and tax returns - all of a sudden they do care.)
Just about everyone needs privacy rights and most care about those rights for themselves.
I don't think that's true in practice, no. Most people take the "I have nothing to hide" approach, and, sadly, the lives of most people are so uneventful that that's actually true.
the lives of most people are so uneventful that that's actually true.
That's probably true. The issue is that people with something to hide, need the other people to hide their mundane stuff so that the people with things to hide, don't stand out.
Based on more than a handful of videos I have seen, the reason for having security cameras could be just as much about protecting you from police/the legal system as it is about protecting you for insurance purposes and for dissuading criminals.
Comments
Human behavior that tends to self-imprison on a large scale is fascinating to me.
In the west we see communities opting in to self surveillance 100% of the time, in China it can be literally having your door welded shut so you stay at home.
It all stems from the desire to control other people’s behavior to varying degrees. This desire is probably tied to a survival trait, but more often it is to satisfy something else.
Who in this program is surveilling or imprisoning themselves?
Having a camera on your house, pointed into the street, is the opposite of self-surveillance. It's a way to surveil people in a public thoroughfare. Some of those people happen to be thieves who steal things from homes and cars, and if they get caught by video surveillance, that's great.
What exactly do the neighborhood residents lose by participating in this surveillance? It's only an upside for them -- they might be able to catch the thieves, with no loss of privacy for themselves.
Most ring cameras with audio recording pick up internal conversations.
What do they lose? They lose if they're the people on the wrong camera at the wrong time and they get picked up for a crime they didn't commit!
... So nobody should put up security cameras outside their house? That's what these are, that's it. In such a situation most people would consider security cameras a pretty good investment.
I think it's also worth considering what can happen if there aren't cameras - eye witnesses suck. What if someone (or more than one person) claims to have seen you walking by a house that got robbed, and there's no video to prove your innocence? If people are hyper-aware that crime is happening they're going to be paying extra attention, while probably still doing a very bad job of determining what's actually going on.
Or it could be that humans don't respond well to uncontrolled crime. Unless you have experienced crime directed to you, it is easy to judge other's reactions.
If you let privacy rights be preserved by democracy, they will not be preserved, as the vast majority of people have:
a) not much to lose from secret information being divulged
b) not much secret information in the first place
It is really only a tiny minority that actually practically need privacy rights: prominent people, public figures, the wealthy, highly attractive people, alternative lifestyles, political or labor organizers, those speaking truth to power, et c.
We are a very small segment of the population by real numbers. Most people dgaf about privacy because they don't have to, so they never will.
Just about everyone needs privacy rights and most care about those rights for themselves. Unfortunately many are very willing to sacrifice other people's rights if they are told it will make them safer or protect the children, etc. (If someone does claim they don't care about privacy since 'they have nothing to hide', ask them for their medical records and tax returns - all of a sudden they do care.)
I don't think that's true in practice, no. Most people take the "I have nothing to hide" approach, and, sadly, the lives of most people are so uneventful that that's actually true.
That's probably true. The issue is that people with something to hide, need the other people to hide their mundane stuff so that the people with things to hide, don't stand out.
Based on more than a handful of videos I have seen, the reason for having security cameras could be just as much about protecting you from police/the legal system as it is about protecting you for insurance purposes and for dissuading criminals.