[anon151516888]

>"Nothing changed"

I disagree. The most important thing that has changed and is applicable here is that technology makes it absolutely feasible to prevent "crime exists". At least the really bad ones.

The only things preventing it are: big brother scare mongering, privacy "concerns" and funding.

E.g. you could near-eliminate car accidents due to drunk driving with a tech solution. Same goes for gang violence, domestic abuse and bathroom rapes. Just stick a camera in every stall, street corner and household room. Oh and send police if the view gets obstructed or the camera damaged. A while of that and people getting caught, and they'll quickly learn to not do it. Problem solved.

[stordoff]

> Just stick a camera in every stall, street corner and household room.

At the same time paving the way to crush dissent (and in the more extreme case independent thought altogether) against the government, and providing perfect material for the blackmail of future politicians etc. (I'm sure _everyone_ has done/said things, even if perfectly legal/normal, in the privacy of their own home they'd rather not be made public).

And that's not even considering the case where a third-party gains access and uses it for economic/industrial espionage, blackmail, etc.

[Zigurd]

I suppose this is obvious, but evidently not to everyone: There is no example of what you describe. In fact there are counterexamples of putting cameras everywhere and still having crime. Places where there is little crime don't have, and don't need cameras everywhere.

[fvdessen]

Singapour has put cameras everywhere and has a very low crime rate as a consequence. While I don't want to live in such a society the model certainly seems to work.

[pavel_lishin]

I'm not convinced that Singapore's cameras are the magic ingredient preventing all crime.

[pavel_lishin]

This is too blatantly obvious to be a Modest Proposal piece of devil's advocacy.

[0xfeba]

Hm, so what about all the places with a plethora of cameras (convenience stores, for example) that still get robbed?

[ggreer]

You have the causality backwards. Places with a high risk of robbery tend to install security measures such as cameras. This doesn't eliminate robberies, but it does reduce them.