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George Orwell Was Right — Security Cameras Get an Upgrade
Jamie stopped to mention that Bloomberg is reporting on a recent addition of speakers to public security cameras in Middlesbrough, England. From the article: "`People are shocked when they hear the cameras talk, but when they see everyone else looking at them, they feel a twinge of conscience and comply,' said Mike Clark, a spokesman for Middlesbrough Council who recounted the incident. The city has placed speakers in its cameras, allowing operators to chastise miscreants who drop coffee cups, ride bicycles too fast or fight outside bars."
"People sould not fear their governments, governments should fear their people."
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
because god forbid we might think for ourselfs, or act up.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Will people who flip the bird at the cameras and keep walking be regarded as individuals or traitors to the state?
Lasers added to cameras with speakers to deal with those who don't obey
Not a bad idea, what's the difference if it was another person instead? I'd figure most would flip off the camera anyway...not like that's a crime. Doubt they'll summon the police to fine you for dropping a cup on the floor though I have to admit I'd like to see the people who do get embarrassed for doing something b/c they know better.
This 1984 comparison's much more useful for other more infuriating examples, like a national ID.
why run from Vincenzo?
The next step is to add a "non-lethal" weapon to these cameras, something to cause pain "when neccessary". Something like Active Denial System. Yes, we need these. Just think about all the children this will save.
Is it too late for Britain to reverse its course? People get used to cameras because they provide security. Then the authorities add speakers to provide more security. In 10 years, cameras will have face recognition systems. This happens so gradually that citizens become accustomed to Big Brother's constant presence and don't question the next move.
50 years from now, I think historians will look at 9/11 (and the Madrid bombings, etc.) as the beginning of the end of privacy standards that literally took centuries to establish. We have to stop this now before it's too late.
Orwell was a man ahead of his time...
Tags: telescreen
...that the only thing anybody knows about 1984 is that it's about a government that spies on its people. If that was the only thing the book was about, it would have been forgotten long ago — there are hundreds of stories like that. This particular story is interesting because it goes insides the minds of the people who make a totalitarian society work. If people actually read 1984, they might not be so quick to refer to it. Because if they did read it, they'd probably see themselves in it — and not as a brave defender of liberty, but as one of the faceless minions of Big Brother.
We should not ask ourselves what can government do with all the power they are accumulating but what will they do. A nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects something that never was and never will be.
I think there is a great oppertunity for advertising here.
If I can put billboard advertisments in areas where these cameras are pointed, I get a load of people constantly watching 24 hours a day.
The space will be really cheap too, as I could put the ad's in places where pedestrians would not see them, but the camera operators will.
Perhaps special placards could be attatched to the cameras, where I could affix full colour adverts for tasers, video recording systems and handcuffs.
There is always an oppertunity for someone to make money, and I am that man!!!
I just started feeling nauseas and it's not from eating too many Christmas cookies.
It would be one thing to use the speakers to alert others to danger, but this is just for behavoir modification.
-- taking over the world, we are.
I'm only mildly surprised that the government of a western democracy would propose such a system -- but I'm shocked that the people of any western democracy would allow it -- TFA says the camera:person ratio has reached 1:16 -- why are people putting up with this? It's time to storm parliment with flaming pitchforks. The U.K. has become an out-of-control police state -- and it is the *left* that is pushing for more cameras....
People of England, you have sold your souls.
Makes you want to just go hug Big Brother doesn't it? I love Big Brother.
The question is, to quote Milton Friedman, "how can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect?"
This would be really fun to hack... "Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!!!" :)
I think this is a hoax, pure and simple... it's just too far out to be true. Anyone confirm or deny?
Anyone who wastes doubleplusgood Victory coffee is probably a Eurasian spy anyway.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/17/16 56258
- It is God!
Considered harmful.
"Sir please close the raincoat and move along, you're scaring the pidgeons."
when everyone signs a petition that says i can smack them in the face when they do something completely incosiderate of their community and peers, then i'll say we don't need any sort of societal controls. SOME PEOPLE NEED BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION. sorry if that's a shocker. i mean, hell, haven't i already been behaviorally modified into not smacking assholes in the face? how is it fair that i got that against me but the assholes of the world walk free?
can we go easy on the 84 melodrama. sometimes the police brings some benefit for us all (I know, *gasp*) and not every new tool that it's handed is a stepping stone to a dystopia.
Isn't this a dupe of this?
"Hey you! Pick up that Coke can, or you'll be in big trouble. Hey! Look at me when I'm speaking! Stop pulling your pants down. Don't bend over. Right! That's it! You've had it now, mister! You are in so much trouble. Hey come back here! I haven't finished with you yet! I said come back!"
The problem isn't so much the use you describe, but the potential misuses of the system.
At the lowest level, I know of one anecdotal story where couples having a quickie in a popular spot were unaware a camera had gone up; and the security guard watching was in fact recording their sex, compiling the events into tapes, and selling them.
At the higher level, we run into a problem where a society becomes ever more effective at imposing its value system upon the members of that society. As JSM said, "society executes its own mandates". What happens when these cameras are present in a area rife with racism and the viewers themselves are racist? I can imagine blacks being harshly treated, with intolerance, and whites being let off or lightly treated for the same acts.
At a higher level yet, the issue becomes that of concern about the ways in which this new capability will interact with other new capabilities - such as massive State databases. The State has always kept information on us, but in analog systems, which are inherently so slow to use that the practical uses of that data were sharply limited. When, however, access becomes effectively immediate, what you have isn't more of the same, what you have now is *new and different*. It's is a qualitative change, not a quantative change. In this vein, mixing massive video survelliance with massive databases and police monitoring, very real concerns begin to arise - in particular, that we are finally loosing *freedom*, for we are no longer free; we MUST do what society and State expects us to do.
The terrible mind-trap here is people going "well, that only means not doing things which are bad, so what's the problem?"
Anyone notice that when you click on a reply, when you get back to the main tree of posts, there's a checkmark noting you've looked at it.
"You, with the keyboard! Yes, you! Go back and mod that post up!"
But remember not to take your mobile phone with you, since that will be tied into your ID card and the cops will be able to see which phones were present at the right time as the smashed cameras and prosecute you.
This is part of what scares me about all this; we seem to be creating these massively effective tools for behaviour enforcement, and not giving a thought to their misuse. What happens if in ten, twenty, fifty years time, the State goes bad?
we're not far behind. In my town, Downers Grove, there are now cameras at every major intersection. In Chicago, there are cameras in most high crime neighborhoods. Very few seem to care. I won't even mention the number of "private" cameras around any interesting corporate locations.
Smile! You're on Candid Camera!!!
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Well, given the use of those neat little ASBOs the Brits are so fond of (which basically allow the courts to arbitrarily criminalize ANY "anti-social" behavior), it's safe to say that any flagrant display of disrespect can be grounds for imprisonment (though you'd have to do twice--once for the ASBO to be issued, and once again to be arrested as a violator of the ASBO.) It likely comes down to the whim of the camera operator as to whether or not this happens.
I'd explain in detail why this is such an obscenely bad thing, but I just don't have the energy. Seems like English-speaking countries in general are a bad place to live if you enjoy personal freedoms (and no, I'm not comforted by the fact that it's much worse in most Arabic speaking countries. This isn't a fucking playground; "they started it!" isn't a valid excuse.)
>So, what's the speed limit for a bicycle?
There isn't one. Well, other than the speed of light.
What you can be charged with is the delightfully named crime of 'Furious Cycling' plus any number of other catch-all contempt-of-cop offenses (public nuisance, disturbing the peace etc.).
The only problem is that it does not go far enough. Put the feeds on the internet too, open up all the cameras, and install more in all government buildings (if you're a public servant the public should be able to monitor you while you're on the clock). If someone wants to track my movements with a camera I say go ahead.... but only if I get to know who's watching me and I have the ability to watch them back. An open and transparent society can make the world both safe and free. The only thing wrong with traditional surveillance is the imbalence of power between the watchers and the watched.
Actually, I just realized you *could* be arrested after only one "anti-social" sign of disrespect. Apparently, the courts issued a pre-emptive ASBO for the entire town of Skegness, allowing the police to imprison anyone (for up to six months) whom they deemed disruptive even if they haven't actually broken any laws. (Explicitly included was the power to disperse any "crowd" consisting of two or more people.)
I don't see what's stopping them from issuing a similar ASBO covering the entire camera network...
Let's think about this.
These speaker equipped cameras don't do anything that a police officer at the scene couldn't do, and in fact do quite a bit less. So if you consider posting the cameras there unethical, it seems you must be opposed to having a patrolling police force at all. And that's a pretty extreme position.
If you consider having a police force good, the size of it becomes a question of economics. You could hire a cop to stand at each street corner 24/7, but the cost would not be anywhere near the benefit, so you accept a certain level of violent crime that you can't afford to address. But with this technology, the cost goes down by several orders of magnitude, and now that service level is economical.
I'm open to the idea that this level of surveillance becomes something qualitatively different and evil than the occasional patrolling cop. But I have yet to see any arguments for that here.
Lets not give the police guns because hey, what if they go bad in ten, twenty, fifty years time!
Well, in the UK, the cops don't have guns.
In the US, the cops have to have guns, because everyone else does, too - which affects and I suspect limits the consequences of the decision to arm the police.
But arming the police is pretty well understood and inherently limited, in that it can only affects situations where police are present, and there aren't that many police. I'm not sure we can say the same about a combination of massive State databases and suveillance will lead us; it will mean, in effect, police everywhere, all the time.
listening to one of his radio shows (podcast available) I heard an interesting take on cameras that I find compelling.
he's a self-proclaimed libertarian nut and suggested that cameras should be everywhere (in public, not private) but that the feeds should be freely available to everyone.
this would be great. you have no right or expectation of privacy in public anyway, so it's just information that is available anyway. so why not let everyone have access. reduces the risk of misuse by government and makes it a resource for the people who pay for them.
I can imagine it almost being as big as the internet and have a massive reduction on crime.
it would be even bettter if there was a server where you could request footage for a certain time period e.g. your car was damaged while you were at the shop so you get the car park footage and see who it was for either the police or insurance company. hit and run accidents would be so difficult to get away with.
It's simple. A free society must tolerate some lawlessness or it is no longer free. Nope, it isn't right to litter or burgle or murder or rape. But it also isn't right to keep adding powers and new surveillance technology to police forces until they are as omniscient as God.
the speed limit isn't for a particular type of vehicle in most cases, the speed limit is for the street in question. So, you can get a speeding ticket for going 21mph in a 20mph school zone.
My bet is the guys on the monitors run an asshole of the month competition, I mean even without speakers it must already be a common occurence.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Personal "diary" cameras that log everything we do, from our point of view. Everything is written to a bio-encoded storage device. The data on that device is considered to be part of ones person, and can NOT be taken or used against the owner under ANY circumstances unless it is surrendered by someone of sound mind.
Now we all record everything. And it's up to us if OUR data is used against us or someone else. If no one will turn over their video, then you have no case.
An added benefit of this model is it removes the known bias of witnesses. Now you have digital data.
In the book, Small Gods, the head of the Quisition (gathering up heretics and "purifying" them) has the secret key to making it work: That there is no depravity committed by a pychotic serial killer that cannot be replicated by a man just doing his job.
Paraphrasing is mine, but the idea is pretty much on point.
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway
> The other terrible mind-trap is to fall down the rabbit hole and proclaim the world is ending every time something
> new happens.
What, like global warming?
Sometimes you know there really is a threat that would end our world; and it's happening now, and hasn't really happened before, because we, as a species, have through our numbers and technology vastly more influence and impact upon ourselves and our environment than we have ever had before.
A free society must tolerate some lawlessness or it is no longer free.
Uhh... actually, a free society should not tolerate lawlessness, since the law outlines actions that are prohibited - actions not to be tolerated.
Nope, it isn't right to litter or burgle or murder or rape. But it also isn't right to keep adding powers and new surveillance technology to police forces until they are as omniscient as God.
Talk about a straw man: this technology makes nothing as 'omniscient as God', and it's a bad 'slippery slope' line of thought to think that it's going to lead to that.
Lawlessness should never be tolerated. Or will you let someone kill one of your family members, since (as you say) "a free society must tolerate some lawnessness or it is no longer free"? Come on: sacrifice a loved one for the good of the nation, I dare you.
who is watching the watchers? Man at every level is fallible. Unless you somehow have a system built on algorithms that can police based on an agreed standard, there will always be people abusing the power to watch/control others. Then if you do have such an 'autopilot' system in place, guess what? "I for one welcome...."
A suitable magnetron device is to be found in your microwave oven. Excess pressure calls for resistance, that's way of the history goes.
There you are, staring at me again.
The real question our philosophers and ethicists are yet to answer, is: Is 100% effective law-enforcement desirable?
The security cameras allow us to place a (virtual) police officer on every corner and between — a single real officer can have eyes and ears of 5 or 10, while working in a comfortable environment. That's a dramatic boom to law-enforcement. Whether or not that is a good thing depends on the answer to the above question...
And before you reach for the "Reply" link to type: "It depends on the laws," — yes, thank you, I know. It depends on a number of other things too, and even the obvious dependency on the laws is not as straightforward... For example, rogue law-makers would not exist either...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If the camera operators get to watch and yell at us, then we should get a cameras with speakers so we can watch and yell at them.
:::::sounds of scuffling and heavily muffled yelling:::::
*THATS* fair.
Next think you know, they'll be indoctrinating kids to narq on all the adults:
"Teacher, I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus!"
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
At the higher level, we run into a problem where a society becomes ever more effective at imposing its value system upon the members of that society. [...] What happens when these cameras are present in a area rife with racism and the viewers themselves are racist? I can imagine blacks being harshly treated, with intolerance, and whites being let off or lightly treated for the same acts.
Without addressing the main issue in your post, I have to say something about this often-heard argument. Put more bluntly, what is claimed here is that incompetence is the safeguard of freedom: if government(/society) is bumbling enough, it won't be able to enforce unfair policies.
Yet, maintaining freedom by government incompetence is a dangerous route, because (1) it may be impotent to act when it is needed, (2) incompetence as a government policy may very well lead to corruption and waste ("it's good that I'm an inefficient government clerk; I'm maintaining freedom for the populace!"), and (3) people now need to know not just what is legal, but what is 'effectively legal', i.e. not legal but what government incompetence makes legal because no-one is prosecuted for it, which can also lead to (4) selective, discriminatory enforcement by the government ("we can't prosecute all who break this law, so we do what we can" - but those that are prosecuted just 'happen' to belong to some particular group or minority - note that this is the exact same argument as appears in the quoted paragraph above, but arguing the opposite claim).
But there is indeed an intuition that an 'overly-efficient' government is a danger. I think the underlying issue is that, in some situations, there may be a disparity between what the people want and what the people they elect want (e.g. where I live at least, the majority of the population are in favor of legalizing pot, or at least indifferent; but lawmakers are strongly against it). And the simplest way to solve the problem stemming from that disparity seems to be to just make government inefficient (if the cops don't do their job and arrest potheads, then pot is effectively free, just as if it were legally free).
But the 'simplest way' is often a very poor solution. The 'right' solution would be to protest, to fight for the causes people care about, so that lawmakers are in tune with the public; perhaps also to implement a more direct democracy. Government incompetence as a way to maintain freedom is an ugly hack, in programmer's terms; problem is, people are too lazy to do things the correct way.
Even if the group is as small as two individuals, there still need to be laws.
...anonymous coward!
Me and you. Give me half of your possession, because I declared myself a tax collector. It's been a law between us before you were born. Or I will jail you and torment you, because I am judge and enforcer before you. And do not ever tell me a society without consensus is a crime, or I'll kill you. You,
There you are, staring at me again.
Orwell was an optimist !!!
I will fuck you dead -God
Read "The Transparent Society" by David Brin. He makes several good points about why a society needs to inevitably go in that sort of direction or end up as a tyranny of "those with privacy" versus "those without".
yours,
kbs
Why even repeat such an unlikely urban legend? Even the dimmest guard is going to know that he'd lose his job, and probably be prosecuted, if he did this. And it would be all over the tabloids if it ever happened.
The problem is that it's Britain we're talking about. "Nuisance" crimes committed by youths seem to be more prevalent there due to the oft cited "yob" or "chav" culture. In Britain, there is an underclass of people (most of whom are white) who have absolutely no respect for the law or for other citizens.
Given the ridiculous class divisions that still pervade that country, there are few prospects for them, and so they might as well be hooligans. In some ways they aren't the worst. The English middle class are absolutely insufferable.
I can't say that I like the idea of cameras, but Britain is such a pathetic and dysfunctional country (try organizing a fucking train ride next time you are there, or getting served in a store) that I don't have much pity. It has to be the least efficient country on the planet. Even though I'm entitled to, and it would probably make me more money, I will never go back there to live.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
We now have all these cameras instead of the police, who mainly rush up and down running people over.
They no longer see any role as 'guardians of the peace' that's the role of the cameras.
The problem with this picture is that the cameras are intrusive (I don't want to be watched by morons all the time) and worse reactive (trouble develops and has to be supressed rather than being prevented).
Most minor crime is not reported in the UK because a) the police can't be bothered b) if bothered they have very low clear up rates anyway (in spite of a huge budget, dna databases, helicopters etc. etc.)
It's time for something different but not this.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
and as you can see from recent cigarette smoking and Trans fat ads, the bar for "wrong" goes down and down... after all, with cameras they have to find "wrong" doing in order to justify their existence...
I'm not saying there shouldn't be punishments for breaking the laws... Of course you should do that, but the mark of a free, moral person is to do the RIGHT THING when nobody is looking, BECAUSE nobody but themselves will ever be disappointed by it!!!! IF you don't have a society that breeds that kind of self-respect and TRUST, your society's already collapsing!!!!
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
By the way: Go watch 1984. Not only is it a good movie
Better yet, read the book!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
And society is more likely to lose it's freedoms inch by inch then through one fell swoop.
Right now, if the law enforcement agencies were so inclined they could find charges for everyone of us. There are so many laws, we are all criminals.
So, what you expecting ? Control freaks are everywhere...
Western Civilization creates that industr revolution then information revolution now ?
Control freaking...
Bah, this is isint going any where. People becoming lambs.
I do not want to see the goverments enfoces to implant some kind of control chips into humans...
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
But remember not to take your mobile phone with you, since that will be tied into your ID card and the cops will be able to see which phones were present at the right time as the smashed cameras and prosecute you.
This is part of what scares me about all this;
So you are scared if a bunch of vandals get caught in the act? These cameras are a GOOD THING. Before, it was the policeman's word plus any evidence they could obtain/fabricate, against yours. Now the criminal act is captured on video, and the real culprit is put behind bars where he belongs.
As for the police using a loudspeaker to embarrass, say, a litterer - big deal. You SHOULDN'T litter anyway. Temporary humiliation/surprise at being caught in the act is pretty effective to get you to pick up your empty Doritos wrapper and put it in the garbage where it belongs. Doubtful you are going to go to jail for it - you could be fined however if you ignore them. Moral of the story - don't be a jackass and don't litter.
What happens if in ten, twenty, fifty years time, the State goes bad?
Then the revolution with smash all cameras and other "symbols of the oppressive state", and we start again. Haven't you been paying attention to history?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I'm not sure we can say the same about a combination of massive State databases and suveillance will lead us; it will mean, in effect, police everywhere, all the time.
That's impossible. They would drown in their own data. No, as usual, the limited resources will be applied to major trouble spots/trouble makers/crime types. Databases will just make their work easier and they'll be able to become more effective. I'm sure no one cares if they catch you picking your nose on camera.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Lawlessness should never be tolerated. Or will you let someone kill one of your family members, since (as you say) "a free society must tolerate some lawnessness or it is no longer free"? Come on: sacrifice a loved one for the good of the nation, I dare you.
Amusing that you should chastise someone elses strawman and then build one of your own.--- Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity
I dunno though, I thought liberty would only die to the sound of thunderous applause.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I worked for a corporation that DID in fact fire a security guard for such an action. A couple was in their car in the parking garage engaged in the oldest pastime, the guard made a copy of the video and it found its' way back inside the company. Note: the garage was a corporate property but was required to admit a certain number of public auto's due to agreements with the local city government. The guard was terminated, NOT for the act of filming the intercourse, but for removing the contents of the tape from company property without permission. As for the couple, they were told to stuff it, in public they ZERO EXPECTATION of privacy.
To my knowledge there was no attempt at sales or publishing the segment, the word got around because the guard was showing to other guards and a female security dispatcher overheard and reported it to us...
I KNOW this to be fact, because at the time I was working as corporate security and was involved in the initial interviews of all three indiviuals.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Hi!
What class divisions are there here (uk) that you don't get in every other country? I'm honestly asking - it can be hard to view your own country from the inside.
What do you mean by that the middle class are insufferable? You don't like their mannerisms?
> I dunno though, I thought liberty would only die to the sound of thunderous applause.
Liberty is dying to the sound of a billion people watching TV.
(Watching - oh, the irony - watching Big Brother.)
It's not quite so anecdotal.
There's a blogger I've been reading for some time. She wrote about coming in and finding the security guard for her building, who she knows, doing as I've described.
> Even the dimmest guard is going to know that he'd lose his job, and probably be prosecuted
Plenty of security guards steal from the premises they're working on, get spotted on camera, are fired and prosecuted. This is what people do, and it's part of why concentrating too much power in too few hands is a really bad idea.
What happens when a mass of people are racist (Southern USA), so that the people you have watching are racist, and the people who have watching the watchers are also racist?
There was a report fairly recently made by a British scientist investigation the collapse of penguin populations in the Falkland Islands.
What he found was that commerical fishing was destroying the penguins food supply and so they were starving.
The local Government on the Falkland Islands basically tried to frame this guy, because they didn't want his report to get out, because of the harm it would do to the economy. He came home one day to find he felt his house had been entered - and he found a *gun* was planted in his bedroom.
> Databases will just make their work easier and they'll be able to become more effective.
I'm afraid you're right.
Do I have to do all the thinking round here? You also put cameras on the people watching the camera operators.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
What happens when a mass of people are racist (Southern USA), so that the people you have watching are racist, and the people who have watching the watchers are also racist?
--
Mmm, you have cameras only at the back of the buses?
Did I win something?
You're right about this myth of our safety from tyranny through government incompetence.
As long as government is competent enough to lock you up, give you a lethal injection, start a war or tap a phone, we have to be ever-diligent.
In fact, sometimes the leaders who appear the most incompetent, like this (and I mean this with all due respect) piece of shit currently in the White House, are the ones you have to watch the closest.
Don't take it from me, read the writings of those famous liberals who started this great nation. And take a look at On Liberty and The Rights of Man.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"But there is indeed an intuition that an 'overly-efficient' government is a danger."
I'll tell you what the real problem is, because new humans are born and old ones die societies, governments and industries have a hard time stabilizing themselves because with each death of high quality people, you get new ones that are of varying quality. And the ratio's of high quality people to low quality ones are thus difficult to quantify at this time, the ratio's change over time due to a host of circumstances.
Really all the allegedly superior forms of government or human values, have their basis in the shortness of human life and the fact that the overall quality of men, women and children varies considerably, then add in the cycle of birth and death and you have a recipe for instability.
The fact is, you lose your best men and women as the age, get sick and die, and then you have to reinvent the wheel all over again with every new child that is born hoping when it grows up, that it will pick up good values to carry on a peaceful and stable society.
People should not be afraid of cookies, cookies should be afraid of people.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Lawlessness should never be tolerated. Or will you let someone kill one of your family members, since (as you say) "a free society must tolerate some lawnessness or it is no longer free"? Come on: sacrifice a loved one for the good of the nation, I dare you.
Well since we are taking things to extremes, lets follow your path to its logical end: a society of ants marching in lockstep from the cradle to the grave, a place for everything and everything in its place. The diametrical opposite, what you seem to fear, is of course a barbaric anarchy, every man for himself - do what you will shall be the whole of the law. Neither is practical, neither is representative of humanity.
We are a young race, really in biological and evolutionary terms we are just down from the trees. We are still floundering around trying to determine exactly what is "good" and "evil", the characteristics of right and wrong. Some are convinced we are simply meat machines, our whole lives determined by our genes, excusing and condemning failures in equal measure, others seek to put every foible into a neat box to be repaired or removed, like most of the psychology industry, while yet others make the sight of our own bodies an abomination, along with certain arbitrary words, generally to do with the pleasurable act of copulation. Our instinctive natures and animal passions come into conflict with our intellectual and social structures. The question really is, are those structures right or wrong, did we achieve all we have in spite of or because of our passions?
I'd say that we do not have enough facts to make any definitive decisions on that question yet. Worship of the rule of law is as dangerous as not caring about law at all; law is and always has been a sanctioned instrument of vengeance, from the earliest days to the present. Thats why prisons are not places of rehabilitation (PMITA is even a commonly understood acronym!), they are places of punishment, and that is not likely to change any time soon.
And yet by adjusting the laws to compensate for our inherently passionate nature, you begin a game of brinkmanship, where people with less regard for their fellow man try to keep criminal acts to the grey areas where they might be excused their actions. Structure is not neccesarily the best way to go; neither is a lack of structure. How and where the best compromise is to be found is a question yet to be answered.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Yes, with this caveat;
I'd love to see 100% law enforcement, as long as 100% of the enforcement (or enforcing agent's) action is also monitored.
Can anyone shed any light on this concept of "riding bicycles too fast"?
In my extremely large amount of experience riding bicycles as my primary form of transportation, I find it is quite rare that I can exceed the posted speed limit without a great deal of exertion. In the case that I travel at 30mph in a 25mph zone (the speed of the traffic nonetheless), how is some talking camera going to notice me and talk to me before I've gone past. Remember, I'm going 30mph.
Does England have 15kmph bicycle lands? 10?
What a bizarre concept.
-josh
I could live with universal surveillance as long as the streams (and speakers) were open to *all*.
Last post!
...considering how Orwell went through the trouble of writing them that manuel.
The Bee Watcher-Watcher watched the Bee Watcher.
He didn't watch well. So another Hawtch-Hawtcher
had to come in as a Watch-Watcher-Watcher!
And today all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch
are watching on Watch-Watcher-Watchering-Watch,
Watch-Watching the Watcher who's watching that bee.
You're not a Hawtch-Watcher. You're lucky, you see!!!
--seuss
They're there affecting their effect.
In fact, you can read more about the subject here.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
But, now they have a good look at your most distingushed feature, and they'll come after you and put you in a line-up for identification!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Check out the movie called 'The final cut', it tells of a technology similar to the one you described (though it employs no encryption and is used for a different purpose).
I am afraid that this won't do, since it will be possible that people will be abducted and then forced to give up their video-logs, just like they are now forced to give up their passwords.
THey might come up with a law that prohibits you from NOT sharing your log when you do have something to show (ex: somebody saw that you saw something happen, they say that you saw that - therefore you MUST cooperate).
Then there's plenty of space for a backdoor in there, so the government could use the logs without your consent.
Finally, if all the public cameras were replaced with these individual cameras, it would mean that justice is always in the hands of the 'witnesses'. Some of them may be afraid to testify; some obscure/distant places that don't have many visitors will become more likely to 'host' a crime, etc.
The saddest poem
The irony grows ever deeper - my post has been modded +1 Funny.
Huxley was right; we're laughing, and we've forgotton why.
> To say our freedom will be lost with these cameras is ignorant. We have never had too much freedom, just
> the illusion that we have. Before it was others telling on us, now the government has found better ways of
> doing it.
Quite an important point, I think. When we consider massive video survelliance and massive State databases, the implications for freedom and liberty and clear. But in fact, society has always executed its own mandates, and Government has become so big and powerful since the New Deal that we have in fact lost a very great deal of freedom and liberty already, without us being particularly aware of it.
> Your assumption that white people are the only racists and our darker skinned brothers and sisters are
> not, is insulting. But this is typical of most people. Blacks are just as racist as whites and to believe
> otherwise is naive!
I made no such assumption. I merely used the example of the Southern US States, where racism exists and within that situation, whites are socio-economically dominant and so are likely to be the watchers.
The other advantage to a speaker next to the camera. When it talks, people look at where the noise is coming from.
The camera then gets a good look at them. These cameras have a terrible track record for identifing people. This is because they don't get a good shot at them. Add in some harsh words and the camera gets a better shot.
Now you could be recorded as being in a place for all time, even if it was a cousin that looks a lot like you.
Merry Christmas!
It's a dumb statement either way.
Liberty doesn't arise when the government fears its people. The vast majority of genocidal incidents, from Stalin to Mao to Hitler and so on, arose in an atmosphere where the average citizen was fanatically in support of the dictator, but the dictator had a paranoid and irrational fear of the people.
A tyranny where the people are conscious enough of their oppression to feel *fear* of the government is one that will very soon collapse, likely into liberty. One where the fear goes the other way is one that is very liable to commit horrific crimes - and get away with it.
You said SELLING the videos. Was he doing so? Watching I can believe. Selling is a briliant way to distribute evidence against yourself for a lousy few bucks -- what could you charge anyway, when you can get XXX DVDs online for a few bucks?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
I for one welcome our -1 flamebait moderator overlords. I think everyone should bear in mind this is Slashdot - there is one correct way to think, and that is to think the government is after you. To suggest that a local council installing CCTV to stop fights is a good thing is flamebait and clearly not a genuine argument. Such arguments must be stamped out on Slashdot, so please, let fly with your mod points.
Sorry for not RTFA ;)
But what exactly is "to fast" on a bicycle?
I've heard us humans can't travel beyond 26mph
Whoa! Easy there Tiger! I understand you are trying to draw a correlation between cultural differences and racial profiling, but you are bordering flamebait.
On the other hand, your lack of understanding about Southern USA does inadvertently reinforce the concept that "big brother" may apply his/her cultural norms, thus creating an "Us versus Them" paradigm.
"Does this wine taste funny to you?" -- Socrates
Wasnt the beginning of the end, it was just a big push in that direction.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi
So you're saying that having a cop spaced out every 10 feet wouldn't have a chilling effect on many freedoms?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I don't know of any masses of people in the Southern USA who are racist. Just a handful of stupid fucks who live out in the sticks and rarely venture into a metro area. It's unfair and ignorant to generalize people who live in Southeastern US states as such.
Rex is 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
At the lowest level, I know of one anecdotal story where couples having a quickie in a popular spot were unaware a camera had gone up; and the security guard watching was in fact recording their sex, compiling the events into tapes, and selling them.
Only one? Let me tell you about this thing called YouTube...
Another great bit of SciFi in the form of a movie. Puts the "I just work here" angle in perspective.
-peace
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Systems like this depersonalize the citizens to the officers. That's just how people work.
As cops go from spending their day walking the beat, to spending their day in a police cruiser, to spending their day cam-surfing from their desk, policing becomes less and less about maintaining order through person-to-person interactions, and more about authoritarian gotcha-style law enforcement. Society as a whole suffers.
Stalin would have liked it.
The State has always kept information on us, but in analog systems, which are inherently so slow to use that the practical uses of that data were sharply limited.
Citizens may soon learn why our government should be inefficient.
It could be, if you start the enforcement with Congress. I'd love to see just how many laws would be quickly altered to read "a personal, not a legal matter" or "morally questionable, but certainly not criminal".
It might just be worth it, since virtually all people would be affected the nation would have no choice but to confront bad law, and there's a lot of bad law. In fact, 100% law enforcement is almost certainly impossible due to contradictions in the legal canon.
That's pre 7-11 thinking....
We all remember when in class, at a specific time, the students would organize a textbook drop. Everyone knows how loud a textbook is when it hits the ground. Imagine when 30 hit the ground at the same time. It's deafening.
Similarly, why don't people find out where all these talking cameras are and organize a coffee cup drop... often.
Drop a cup of coffee. If the "man behind the curtain" starts talking, flip the bird and walk away. Also, optionally but recommended, hand out something that explains what you're doing.
Civil disobedience still has its place in the world.
The biggest problem, as it has been said before, is that there are many laws that are so vague, that virtually ALL citizens of the US and the UK are guilty of violating at least one of them regularly.
the problem is that laws and sentences are set up with a strong consideration to the fact that we only catch someone one out of 10 times.
The exponential progression of "mandatory minimums" and "strict sentencing guidelines" came about out of desire to use the sentence as a deterrent, rather than a punishment, under the assumption that we cannot have 100% enforcement, therefore we must find other ways to prevent crime.
So in the scenario of 100% enforcement, perhaps we need to seriously look at the effects.
In the United States, more than 15% of the population will serve time in jail during their lifetime. More than 4% of the population is serving an extended jail sentence.
Criminologists agree that less than 10% of "real" crimes are actually brought to a successful guilty verdect.
Extrapolating, with 100% enforcement, does this not mean that 35% of the population of the United States would be serving jail time? Is this desirable? or does it illustrate a flaw in our thinking about what is punishable and illegal?
Stew
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
The cameras-everywhere concept is one I like for private citizens (who, after all, have a State to contend with), but the State should be watched very closely as a matter of course, including (natch) when it's trying to watch its employers.
I wonder whenever I see them: What would happen to such cameras if a laser pointer (or a few at once) were to be aimed straight into its lens for a little while? Anything? Nothing? Not much? Are they sufficiently intelligent to block light that's more than the sensors want to deal with, and can they do it fast enough to matter?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
So you believe 100% of the laws are 100% correct, none flawed, open to misinterpretation or just plain wrong/outdated?
If there were 100% enforcement, maybe the members of congress would think twice before enacting some bill that, if taken literally and enforced effectively, would end up getting themselves arrested, not to mention their children, police officers, the president, etc. Even if congress didn't wise up, and half of them (yeah right, more like all of them) ended up in jail, then the public backlash would be strong enough to instigate a change in the way laws are written.
You alluded to this in your post, too, but perhaps the sentences/fines will be diminished for some of the lesser crimes where the punishments have gotten out of hand, like stealing cable. Afterall, if there is a 100% chance that you will get caught, having any punishment at all is a substantial deterrent.
A physically present cop can beat you up, arrest you, and even kill you. I'd say that worse potential for abuse than the anonymous rudeness that can occur over the speaker system, however unpleasant that might be.
I'm not clear on what the "powers" a camera operator has. It seems to be little more than the those of a disembodied spirit. He can see what is happening, and also say words. Unless there is some law in place mandating that people obey these voices, I don't see what "power" they have, to abuse or not.
If there is such a law, things are more interesting. It seems that law is the interesting part in this, in that case, more than the cameras themselves.
Which in turn has conditioned people to believe that being watched 24 hours a day is NORMAL. :/
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Wrong.
On slashdot, there are two ways to think. The first is to think *new idea A* is a bad idea (and as nerds, we are usually prone to disliking just about everything we haven't seen before. We hate later seasons of shows because they're not previous seasons, we hate new games because they're not older games we loved, etc. =p ). The second is to think that everyone hates *New Idea A* because they are clearly *Insert overgeneralized demographic, such as Republican/Democrat/liberal/conservative/naive fool/cynical fool/foolish fool/cowboy neal/NOT cowboy neal*.
It's entirely possible for two people to support the same idea for entirely different reasons. In this case, maybe some of us think a better solution to this is not to add annoying features to cameras, but to simply step up our own personal responsibility. If you see someone litter in public, please, chew him out. If this happens enough, hey, people might just stop out of the sake of avoiding being hassled. Or not. (If they're driving, why not report their license plate number to the police? Fines tend to be quite common for this sort of thing)
And for the record, I'd call the GP's post flamebait not because he disagreed with my opinion, but because he did so in an extremely harsh, and disrespectful manner. Insulting your opponents, no matter how "right" your beliefs may be, is a bad way to give your viewpoint.
Or, in the GP's example, maybe it's time we accept the sad fact that people, as a whole, are essentially lazy slobs who don't care about any mess they don't personally have to clean up. (Both working and shopping in retail stores, I see plenty of people just drop items anywhere they feel like it, instead of returning it to its rightful shelf-space. This causes plenty of inventory and cleaning problems, but hey, it's not my problem, right?)
Or to summarize:
Believing in the laws is not the same as believing in the long arm of the law.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
If occasional insults of the citizenry is the biggest problem emanating from this "VAST increase of the power of the state", I'll have to say it does not fall in the same league as Nazi Germany or Russia.
I've seen some old trolls in my time, but never one that appears to originate straight from the 18th century. Maybe it's time you updated your posts to make them a little more modern?
(Both working and shopping in retail stores, I see plenty of people just drop items anywhere they feel like it, instead of returning it to its rightful shelf-space. This causes plenty of inventory and cleaning problems, but hey, it's not my problem, right?)
That helps create jobs. Acting in that manner is so morally right, you're pretty much required to do it if you're a decent person.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I've visited most of the major urban centers in the southeast. They were all packed with racists willing to put down blacks in public venues. I don't know what part of the south you live in, but try visiting California for a while, then go back to the southeast and see if you don't suddenly notice the horrifically widespread racism.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Nope, it isn't right to litter or ...
... Lawlessness should never be tolerated. Or will you let someone kill one of your family members, ...
;-), and I don't think it should be illegal. But it is, and I carry it nonetheless. Should I receive an extreme punishment for my publicly-admitted lawless behavior?
;-)
Talk about a straw man.
Actually, it's the escalation of the comment to killing that's the "straw man". The parent's point was that "lawlessness" includes not just murder and other awful crimes, but also such things as littering. A blanket statement that "Lawlessness should never be tolerated" isn't just saying that murderers shoult be punished to the extreme; it's also suggesting that litterers should receive an extreme punishment. And this is the crux of the problem.
For example, like 80-90% of American men (depending on which survey you've read), I currently have a small "Swiss Army" pocketknife in my pocket. In most of the US, this is illegal, since it's a "concealed weapon". I carry it because, well, I use it several times per day. It's light, it's no effort to carry, and it's useful. I've never used it to harm a person (not even myself
And this isn't at all a facetious or extreme example. A curious PR campaign that appeared here (Massachusetts) last year was about the installation of metal detectors in the doors of courthouses around the state. Since this was done, they have reported over 10,000 confiscated weapons per year from people entering the courthouses. This has been bandied about a lot to "educate" people to the lawlessness of the low-life parts of our population who end up in the courthouses.
But a few months ago, I heard an interest radio interview. The radio guy was talking to a few law-enforcement people about the problem, and started probing to find out just what sort of weapons all these people were trying to sneak into the courthouses. The law guys obviously didn't want to give the details, but the radio guy finally got it out of them: Almost all the "weapons" were pocket knives, "of the Swiss Army type".
So yes, the law-enforcement people in this supposedly liberal state are making a big fuss over people carrying 10,000 weapons per year into the courthouses, and they're talking about small pocketknives. They mean people like me, and they do consider my pocketknife a "weapon". When you say that "Lawlessness should never be tolerated", in this state you're not just talking about murderers. You are also saying that I'm a lawless criminal and my small pocketknife is a criminal weapon that should not be tolerated.
This is really what the UK cameras are all about, too, when it comes down to it. Yes, we like the idea of murderers, robbers and rapists being caught and punished. But we're not too comfortable with the idea that, if we whip out a Swiss Army knife to slice open one of those damned "clamshell" packages, we risk arrest and fines or imprisonment for carrying a concealed weapon.
(And the small 1-inch blade on my knife is a good tool for that sort of awful packaging. It's the safest portable tool I know to attack them with. I do wish it were legal, but until the law changes, I'll probably continue to be a concealed-weapon-carrying criminal, as will most American men and around half the women.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I can even tell that you're reading this post right now.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The UK has a long and varied history, their institution's are born from evolving traditions, not created in one foul swoop of constitution. I'm not saying either is better or worse, but the point is that they are vastly different from each other. Perhaps one day the ranks of nobility will fade to nothing but memory, or maybe they won't. In either case it has little to do with the rule of law. The class divisions in the UK are nothing compared to even thirty years ago. It's changing shape in this regard at a remarkable pace given the historical age of the region. Just because you had a bit of a hard time getting served in a shop (perceived you nature perhaps?) is hardly solid ground onto which to build an argument on the United Kingdoms culture.
And no, I couldn't give a shit what my karma is.
There's a Jewish legend/midrash that before this world was created, God created a world based on Strict Justice. The world was not able to survive, and God had to start over and this time created a world based on Mercy.
If you managed to do the same thing in the US, I don't think it would remain stable for long. It's the nature of people that sometimes they do the wrong thing, and you have to give them a chance to change their ways, without being too strict in the punishment.
It's true for children as well BTW. If you punish every little infraction you don't end up with well behaved kids, quite the opposite.
-Ariel
Well, I would love to see more enforcement of littering laws, as they are among the most just and important laws, and people almost never get prosecuted for it. It might have an amazing effect on society if people realized that their actions affect others, and the planet is not their personal trash can. A little prompting from a speaking camera might be all it takes.
As mentioned in the article, you might not even need to "enforce" the law, because interrupting someone in the course of the crime might be enough to stop them doing it.
... and then they built the supercollider.
But to make this a discussion on "George Orwell was right" is missing the point of Orwell's work and missing the point of what is happening. Perhaps because slashdot is a tech forum a lot of people seem to have read 1984 and saw it as a book warning people that technology can enslave people. But Orwell's preface to Animal Farm and his other writings suggest he was concerned less about how technology was used, and more concerned about freedom of press, freedom of opinion and expression. In this sense, modding even "harsh" statements to be flamebait is a far greater action of big-brotherness than installing a talking camera.
FYI: There are Queens in America, too.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Balls... Trans fats have been ignored for 20 years. In the meantime environmental groups have had little campaigns about Genetic Modification (present scientific consensus: no risk), crop monoculture (the horror! the horror!), hundreds of thousands brain dead due to vCJD (what is it now? 50 cases?). The environment is easy to sell to the uneducated public (use pretty dolphins and scare tactics). Real science is hard to sell because people do not have the knowledge, and scientists don't have the marketing or political skills. Greenpeace et al have these in spades, but sadly no scientific expertise or credibility.
Nope, in the UK you can't be done for cycling. The laws are applicable to motorised vehicles only.
...and I found that one particularly peculiar all right.
here it suggests that it was someone riding their bike in a pedestrian-only zone, not "too fast" as such.
There is a solution to all the surveillance: everybody should wear a Spiderman mask when out. Then the cameras will record millions of Spidermen going around every day, and then they will be deemed useless.
Come on mates! it would be fun!
I presume you're being ironic?
> Whoa! Easy there Tiger! I understand you are trying to draw a correlation between cultural differences and
> racial profiling, but you are bordering flamebait.
Apologies. I wasn't trying to suggest the Southern States were particularly racist - I was trying to point out to the OP that if a culture has certain values, picking watchers-of-watchers from that culture won't help you a bit, because they will concur with the behaviour of the watchers. Anti-black racism in the Southern States was an easy way to illustrate the idea, rather than being something I particularly know about.
She reported that he was making collections and selling them, yes.
As for the financial side - I imagine as a lowely security guard he wasn't paid very much and the supplimental income would be welcome; and I suspect the money involved might actually be more than we might think. Also, of course, there's the incentive of industry - true self-employment, where your income is your effort, is extremely enjoyable and motivating.
> I think everyone should bear in mind this is Slashdot - there is one correct way to think, and that is to
> think the government is after you. To suggest that a local council installing CCTV to stop fights is a good
> thing is flamebait and clearly not a genuine argument.
You are completely correct.
The problem is that true even-handedness, true open-mindedness, true seeking for the truth, is something very rare. Most people have beliefs and defend those beliefs. They do not *question* those beliefs. Present views or suggestions which run counter to such a held belief system results in a suppressive response.
This behaviour - which is endemic - is the real, underlying cause of the problems in our society. We do not possess, as a culture, the ability to think. We only possess the ability to react on an emotional level.
This state of affairs has come about due to television. Television is the medium through which our culture communicates with itself. Television presents a continual stream of fragmentary, disconnected, disassociated, contextless images and emotional textures. Contrast this, for example, to a book, which requires the reader to sit down for some hours at a time and consider the authors view and arguments. Television has rendered recent generations unable to think. In particular, this means that there is no longer a meaningul public discourse, and that recent generations have lacked the ability to detect crap when they come across it.
Television is our doom, because it has rendered us, as a species, unconscious. We only react emotionally; and I think this will not be enough to survive the impact we have upon our environment and upon ourselves.
Hey you! Stop fighting. Seriously, I said stop it now. Are you listening to me? Put down that knife. What would your mother think? And those shoes with those pants. Sweet jesus! Who dressed you this morning? Stop hitting him I said! This will all end in tears you know. I try and I try but you just won't listen. Well go ahead and fight, see if I care.
You said this was a blog -- link?
If true, I underestimated human stupidity and kinkiness. Who would pay more than a few dollars for a crappy quality spy cam footage of anonymous people when you can get hi res DVDs of explicit sex by porn stars for peanuts.
Perverts are caught all the time taking upskirt photos on the train, though in that case I would imagine the attraction was as a memento of something seen in real life.
The best way to get rid of such flaws, IMO, is to enforce all such laws strictly and on everyone. The resulting outcry will get the bad laws fixed/repealed very quickly.
For a practical example, I advocate using the automatic road toll-collection systems to enforce speeding laws:
"You entered the highway T seconds ago at exit N. You are now exiting the highway at exit K, which is X miles away from N. Your average speed was thus X/T, which is D miles per hour above the posted speed limit. Here is your $50 ticket (the minimum speeding fine in Massachusetts) — please, pay or appeal within 21 days. Have a nice day."
Once every motorist starts getting these, the speed limit will climb up to a reasonable level very quickly...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Regarding the police and driving badly, sometimes it is the police. Once a car stopped on train tracks that were being used, and when my friend pointed it out to the driver, the fellow just flashed his badge and drove off.
You're right about chewing people out. Unfortunately, it's tough to get it going because we need that critical mass to push it past that tipping point. Also, it can get worse, because if we don't use people skills, then we can make a new enemy out of that person.
It's tough.
testing out my trending skills
Regarding television, I find it quite ironic that it is probably talk shows like Oprah that have caused the most damage to society, because the show doesn't model good talk.
testing out my trending skills
From TFA:
``Nowhere else in the free world is this happening,'' said Helena Kennedy, a human rights lawyer who also is a member of the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. ``The American public would find such inroads into civil liberties wholly unacceptable.''
Yeah . . . right.
Of course we'll accept it, and gladly, too. Hell, as long as it's a "right" that some individual doesn't personally exercise and find valuable, then he may even help them, and campaign for them while they strip him of it.
Drugs, guns, even junk food . . . it is a story repeated with one "freedom" after another.
Rebuilding those factories won't happen without capital to fund the rebuilding of them. If America's dollar depletes to near nothingness in value when the government decides to start printing money Argentinian style, then there will be no capital available to do anything.
When there is no useful currency for establishing value for the products and services the populace creates, then trade stops completely and you revert back to a bartering type economy.
People (as well as foreign investors) need to have faith in a currency for them to use it, and if the government can basically tax your money through inflation as it sees fit, then nobody will have any confidence in that currency.
The currency of the United States is basically a fiat currency (I say "basically" because our currency is really backed by oil and the resources we can collect from around the world courtesy of our military), so if people want to cash in their dollars for hard assets once the dollar starts tanking, they will soon realize they are just holding a bunch of useless pieces of paper (or virtual money in the form of bank accounts).
So, what's the speed limit for a bicycle?
Generally, if you are riding on a road, the same speed as it is for motor vehicles. Not sure about bike paths though.
The thunderous applause is merely a canned track...!
Not only have we forgotten why, but enough never knew in the first place...
Sig broken, watch for
I agree 100% with you. It takes tact, people skills, and a lot of people.
...Nah.
The cynic in me says "That's never going to happen." The optimist in me... wait... wait... nope, he's still dead. (It was a tragic suicide years ago)
But seriously, as much as I detest littering, jerks who leave stuff around for others to clean, and people who just, in general, make messes and expect others to clean them up... to me, that rings out as more of a social problem. There's something seriously wrong with people now, and making someone on camera go "hey, cut that out!" isn't really getting to the root of the problem.
I guess I just hate doing what I call "treating the symptoms, not the disease." Especially when, in this case, the treatment can be so easily abused. And, heck, maybe someday, people will start to improve!
What an excellent site, thanks.
And no, I couldn't give a shit what my karma is.
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Not all working class people are yobs or chavs, not even all working class people of the appropriate age to be yobs or chavs are yobs or chavs. This seems to be what you're implying.
... well ... look at Margaret Thatcher. Woman, daughter of a green grocer, ended up being PM and dominating the political scene for over a decade.
And there is actually a great deal of social equality and social climbing in Britain. Social equality because of our less insanely capitalist society (compared to America). As for social climbing
The class divisions are there in every country, we just happen to be one of the countries that recognises that they exist and that people who are poor may be poor because of their background rather than their being lazy. Seriously, in America, wouldn't you say that there're divisions between an average person who lives in the Bronx and the average person who live in Manhattan? These divisions exist everywhere, we just chose to not bury our heads in the sand about them. And these divisions can be bridged and do get bridged.
The "English middle class"? According to you, the working class is full of yobs, the middle class is insufferable, so are the only people you like the aristocracy then? Besides which, which section of the middle class do you mean, we do divide them up further.
You don't understand the need for cameras. Put bluntly, they're not a bad thing at all, even if they're not really watched, having them in the streets is a good idea, and it works far better than allowing the average man a bloody gun for self-defence, which is a recipe for disaster if ever I've seen one.
And I organised a train ride last weekend, the train was crowded but it went to where I wanted it to go. British trains are not fantastic, but I fail to see what they have to do with anything. And what are you talking about getting served in a shop? You get your stuff and you go to the counter, you pay, and you leave. If you've had trouble in a shop then that's the shop that's dodgy, not the entire country.
I get the impression that you're just a rabid anglophobe who may have been here for two weeks tops, because you just seem to have no idea about how the country actually runs. It's not an efficient country, no, it's not a perfect country. However, no country is perfect, very few countries are efficient and those that are usually have massive downsides. Which countries are good and which are shit are purely subjective, I could never live in America, for instance, for a whole plethora of reasons, but I'm not pretending that my opinion on the country is fact. And I'm not sure that I'd trust the opinion of anyone who is unaware that class divisions exist in every single country and is unaware that these classes are not things that you are locked into for the rest of your life.
No, I was being serious. When I called Bush a "piece of shit" I was giving him all the respect he was due.
I'll check out SG-1 though. I used to watch it when it was on the UHF here in Chicago.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Get a rope! ;-)
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Too bad there seem to be no microphones used in the system. This way people could use the surveillance system as a service rather than for the pure exertion of power. Would be nice for people getting easily lost and might reduce the boredom of the guards ...
This would've been a hilarious segment on "Candid Camera".
This reminds me of a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."