[gorgonical]

Musician-turning-tech anarchist (?) Benn Jordan is making a very interesting series of videos about Flock cameras, their poor safety, and their gray-area interfacing with local governments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMIwNiwQewQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ

I recommend them.

[xracy]

I think his comment about "why dogs might provide actual neighborhood safety" is a good reminder that the thing that makes communities safe is "knowing your neighbors." You don't get safety by building a castle with a moat and a million cameras. You get safety by building a community with context that can respond without having to just "react" to the 6s version of "what happened".

[snerbles]

I'm reminded of prepper forum discussions. Where some do little more than hoard supplies, weapons and gadgets yet don't network and build communities. In an actual societal breakdown scenario these isolated individuals will become loot drops for others who actually band together.

[Dove]

I agree that there is a parallel between governments and corporations multiplying surveillance and preppers impractically multiplying gadgets. I perceive both to be responding to some sort of psychological issue relating to control or insecurity, not to be practically pursuing resilience.

A government with aggressive surveillance ambitions but a decaying police department and justice system looks to me very much like the guy with a mountain of guns and ammo but no parallel investment in something like battlefield medicine. Whatever you're telling yourself about the reason for what you're doing, it is manifestly not correct, at least going by other investments I would expect to see and find neglected.

[IAmBroom]

It's not that they'll be able to call on one another - you can't guarantee who else will be around after The Bad Event (whatever it is).

It's that they don't have the basic strength of building alliances in the first place - something every kid is supposed to learn through the joys and pains of playing together. Bullies are not generally the popular ones, but neither are the loners.

To put it another way: castles can't survive siege forever. They are a delaying tactic until outside help can arrive.

"The Dauphin, whom of succors we entreated, Returns us that his powers are yet not ready To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king, We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy." -- Henry V, Act 3, scene 3

[Morromist]

Heh, I never thought about that but its so true. If society breaks down on the extreme level they anticipate the smart thing to do is probably join a super tight-knit community with lots of young people - maybe the furries or the Amish.

[phil21]

If society breaks down it will be too late to join such groups for nearly all outsiders. Unless you bring very valuable skills or other attributes to the table.

The time to build your community is now, before things get so bad every helpless individual is looking for a group to save them.

[jondwillis]

The time to build your community is now, regardless of the threat of apocalypse.

[goatlover]

I wonder whether The Walking Dead ever did episodes with a surviving Amish community among it's many spinoffs. Potential problem for them is being outgunned by any aggressive community nearby.

[red-iron-pine]

Central PA is the land of guns and chocolate.

that said, I wouldn't be surprised if the Amish already have a small stockpile for practical use cases like hunting and keeping away the English

[mathieudombrock]

The Amish are generally pacifist.

[jkestner]

And the cameras can provide them with solar panels.

I’m lucky to live in a walker-friendly neighborhood where most homes aren’t walled off by privacy fences. I’ve found our communal strength in talking to neighbors about the cameras that feed and feed off our fear in isolation. It’s a choice.

[toofy]

yeah, it doesn’t a lot of thought to realize that societies thrived when they were… social. this has been repeated throughout history.

the people who go off into the woods as uber survivalists or whatever die alone and forgotten from an infected toenail or something equally as stupid while the society full of people down the mountain thrive and people remember each other.

its wild to me how many people are suckered in by the never ending fear mongering that prepper businesses push on them without ever thinking it through.

[Sharlin]

Many may find it unintuitive, but one of the best things you can do for the actual security of a neighborhood is to design it for pedestrian and "loitering" friendliness.

[ultrarunner]

This is extremely salient. Check out Phoenix, AZ sometime in street view. It's a brutalist grid of wide roads (even in "residential zones") where every property is lined in a six-foot block wall. As a result, sight lines are excellent for drivers (encouraging high speeds) but terrible for homeowners. Kids can't reasonably roam free, neighbors rarely meet, and everyone is viewed with suspicion. Most of my neighbors are really decent people, but I see them so rarely we might as live in different cities.

[yowayb]

Vietnam is extremely safe because there are communities everywhere. There are old folks watching young folks. One viet friend said there's an expression "rice-powered cameras" which refers to people that start filming when something is happening.

[duxup]

I put a dog dish and some chewed up tennis balls in my back yard by my back door.

When some folks came by checking for unlocked back doors years ago… they skipped my house.

Don’t even need the dog sometimes.

[themafia]

Safety is best achieved by layering several systems on top of one another.

Would we have such a problem with cameras if the videos were stored locally and not in the cloud?

[diydsp]

Cameras move crime around. Wealth inequality raises crime risk, but community cohesion partially buffers that effect.

Happy to provide sources when back at my keeb if rqstd.

[themafia]

> Cameras move crime around.

Yea, so the the next layer is, why are people committing crimes? I've made it clear I don't think you can just "turn on safety."

> Wealth inequality raises crime risk

So would we have that big of a problem with cameras everywhere if they recorded locally and we had UBI?

> but community cohesion partially buffers that effect.

How do you measure "community cohesion?"

[fakedang]

Carries over to countries too :)

[alsetmusic]

Guest on most recent Better Offline podcast had a good analogy (this one was actually about AI companies, but fits here):

Dog barking at mail delivery person. Delivery person goes away. Dog thinks barking saved the home.

What a great analogy.

[caycep]

this reminds me of this article https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-end-of-gangs-los-angele...

I feel like nowadays with all the political FUD about "crime and safety" here in LA, this should be required reading

[blindriver]

Don't tell this to Trayvon Martin, who was gunned down by a neighborhood watch zealot, because he looked "suspicious" because he was wearing a hoodie.

[xracy]

I need you to reread my comment, and then paraphrase what you think I said, for me. Cause I don't get how this is someone's response to my comment in a million years unless it's like intentional rage bait, or something.

[jkestner]

Benn's videos along with this one from a very chill middle-aged engineer/state rep made the difference in swaying our town to discontinue its Flock contract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwbE5ks7dFg

[amanaplanacanal]

Yep business reform has tons of videos on privacy related stuff. I like him quite a bit.

[seemaze]

Those were great to watch, thanks!

Also, I can't help but feel like I'm watching a young Dr. Emmett Brown.. Great Scott!!

[stronglikedan]

I'd also recommend Louis Rossman's videos on the topic, including how to get involved.

[amanaplanacanal]

Louis is big on right to repair too.

[devin]

Benn is the best. His most recent video is about Ring cameras.

[kgwxd]

And Data center noise pollution before that. It's the only channel I subscribe to knowing full well every video is going to infuriate me.

[boc]

Love the Flashbulb!

[boriskourt]

Super worth a watch. Lots of technical tidbits also.

[AndrewKemendo]

Wow thank you for sharing this I had no idea this guy existed!

There’s more of us techno anarchists out there apparently!

[platevoltage]

Yeah I discovered this guy because a video about Aphex Twin appeared on my feed.

[waNpyt-menrew]

Someone complaining about local governments having data while directing them to YouTube, whose owner does surveillance at a scale far exceeding all local governments of all countries combined, is ironic.

Why don’t these people use Peertube at least. Fact of the matter is they’d like to personally profit off the same nonsense they complain about. This person has a million subscribers, they aren’t some random whistleblower. It’s a job, like all media, generating outrage.

If all of them used peertube maybe we’d have a solid competitor.

[ceejayoz]

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...

[mmcnickle]

> Fact of the matter is they’d like to personally profit off the same nonsense they complain about.

Benn Jordan's YouTube channel is a registered Nonprofit https://www.patreon.com/posts/nonprofit-has-82858569

[puppykito]

???

It is very clearly because YouTube has a higher reach than any other platform in that space.

[komali2]

During the KMT military dictatorship in Taiwan, the KMT used the radio to spread its anti-democratic propaganda and disparage pro-democracy activists. Activists meanwhile spread their messages via pirate radio.

[pc86]

Cool, what does that have to do with anything?

[komali2]

Oppressor and activist may sometimes use the same tools.

The activist needs to first go to where the people are.

[platevoltage]

Hasan Piker owns a house. Lets all complain about that too!