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1984 Comes To Boston
walmass writes "In preparation for the DNC in Boston, 75 cameras monitored by the Federal government will be operating around the downtown Boston location. There are also an unspecified number of state police cameras, and 100 cameras owned by the Metro Boston Transit Authority. Quote: 'And it's here to stay: Boston police say the 30 or so cameras installed for the convention will be used throughout the city once the event is over. "We own them now," said police Superintendent Robert Dunford. "We're certainly not going to put them in a closet."'"
Actually, it's Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority. Almost noone gets it right, even native Bostonians...
Dictionary definitions are an existential statement - if one of the definition fits, then the word itself does. The degree to which it fits can usually be measured inversely to the index of the definition being used. The first definition here is the one most fitting to societies, whereas #2 and, especially, #3 are directed more towards an individual.
If you make a Nazi or 1984 reference, you lose.
Wrong.
Godwin's law, as originally stated, was (approximately) that any discussion thread on usenet (and similar systems), if it did not die first, would eventually warp into something that would provoke a mention of NAZIs - and that the NAZI reference indicated that it had wandered from interesting topics to topics that had been rehashed so many times that they were no longer interesting - at least to old hands (such as Godwin) who had other things to spend their time and internet access on.
Of course, this was quicky misstated into the "Folk Godwins Law" - warped forms like "Mention NAZIs and the thread is dead. You can all drop the discussion and go home now." or "First one to mention NAZIs loses." These forms have been used to systematically shut down debate, whenever someone makes a posting propagating any totalitarian meme that happens to have been used by the NAZIs and someone else points out how the meme had been used to aid oppression.
Such misuse is not merely misinformed, but dangerous. It leads to the increased spread of totalitarian memes and the suppression of counter-memes in the form of historical evidence of the memes' horrendous effects. "Those who do not understand history are condemed to repeat it." And this misstatement of Godwin's law is a prime example of an enabling meme - which selects against learning history and promotes "improved" cover-versions of its worst disasters.
Godwin himself has pointed out the misstatement. But he also asserts that his original law holds - because discussions of the downside of the Folk version (such as this one), though they point out the misuse, do NOT put the thread back on the subject - instead diverting it down the rathole of discussing the misstatement of Godwin's law. So the damaage due to the misuse still occurs.
But venues like Slashdot allow branching. This can take asides aside - so the main thread can continue.
Since you have been so nice as to make the Folk Godwin's Law posting as the FIRST (still above threshold) post, perhaps we can pull that discussion aside RIGHT HERE, and head off repeated Folk Godwin cites in the rest of the comments.
Perhaps that way we can ACTUALLY DEAL WITH the important business at hand: Defending freedom from yet another totalitarian encroachment.
So I STRONGLY suggest that anyone who has read this far STOP following this thread and GET BACK TO that more life-critical task.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Where I live in city-centre Liverpool (England) there are CCTV cameras on all the main streets. If I walk out of my house, I'm on camera, and if I walk into the town centre nearly every step of the way I'm on camera. The aim is to have around 240 cameras around the city centre monitoring millions of square metres as part for the Liverpool CitySafe Initiative.
And you know what? When I'm walking back from town at night I'm extremely glad of it. When you've been assaulted and most of your friends who live nearby have been mugged then perhaps you'll understand why. I'm normally extremely libertarian in my views but when you and your partners safety are in question then it sadly pays to be pragmatic. The Guardian newspaper featured an interesting article on CCTV in Liverpool and it's privacy implications, but the fact remains that surveys show that 93% of people are in favour. It works, too, because crime has been cut quite dramatically as part of the initiative.
Of course, were are more accustomed to CCTV cameras in Britain. We have the highest ratio of CCTV cameras per population of any country - something like 4m (or one for every 13 people). There are traffic cameras on many roads capable of snapping speeding drivers or those that jump red lights. It is estimated that each person in Britain is caught on camera 300 times a day. The implications are worrying, and the situation needs to be carefully monitored, but when I'm walking back from the pub at night I can't help but feel a little more reassured.
That's not that many cameras in Boston. There's something like TWO ORDERS of magnitude more public monitoring cameras in London!
London Underground subway ALONE is reported to have over 6000 monitoring cameras now, being increased to 9000 source link. When including CCTV cameras elsewhere, there's well OVER 10,000 CAMERAS monitoring you.
Although, apparently, most Londoners doesn't seem to mind. As long as they're only pointed to public areas.