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by dbliss 2953 days ago
Can you expand on "literally everyone is worse off", and I'll assume you meant literally in the colloquial sense, as an emphasis.

OP gave an example where he was better off. Do you mean that the trade-off is not worth risk/down side?

2 comments

Only if you consider privacy as a means to an end rather than a goal by itself. Facial recognition has a negative effect on literally everyone's privacy.
Privacy is a means to an end.

That end is peace-of-mind.

People who have been damaged by random acts of crime may very well find more peace-of-mind sacrificing a bit of privacy to not have those acts repeated on their persons.

Should we install security cameras in public toilets? It would certainly reduce crimes such as assaults that occur in public toilets. There would be very little impact on our personal security.

Privacy is an fundamental aspect of our quality of life. Privacy is not of secondary importance to security but exists alongside it. If that were not so, then there are plenty of places we could be putting surveillance cameras in order to improve our security.

However, people install security cameras in their own homes all the time---some of which are even wired to cloud services or outside security monitoring agencies.

I agree that privacy exists alongside security. Where the balance-point is best placed varies from person to person. In public spaces not scoped for private activities (such as the streets of a city), the balance point has to be agreed upon by the citizenry in general and is almost certainly somewhere past both "toilet stall" and "personal residence" in terms of collective value for surveillance.

After all, we already put up security cameras on street corners.

Until we have 100% transparency into situations where executives/operatives/etc are meeting behind closed doors to screw over thousands if not millions of people then they should not be allowed to have any of those privileges on us.
OP gave the example where they felt better because someone got a harsher punishment.
No, I didn’t say that.

When you take a GPS from an unlocked car, you get charged with petit larceny, which is an appearance ticket and $50-500 fine.

When you get charged with a higher crime, you get a few weeks in jail. In my case, the offender was a known “frequent flyer” who victimized my neighborhood for months, and was arrested 6 times. He was charged with a more serious misdemeanor, and was charged with 30 days in jail. He has not returned.

My objective as a citizen is to peacefully enjoy my home. Some lowlife doesn’t have the right to pillage our yards.