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by trbleclef 17 days ago
What's that quote about essential Liberty and temporary Safety again...
4 comments

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin

But as we all know in context Franklin was talking about the Penn family wanting to literally purchase temporary safety from native American raids privately (rather than being taxed) and weakening the ability of the PA General Assembly to govern.

I'm guessing he'd probably be pro privacy, though.

My understanding of Franklin is that if he were alive today he’d probably spend most of his time on Onlyfans.
Keep quoting it and people will continue to ignore it

Look around.

99% of people couldn’t care less about privacy and are begging to give over their whole personal life data for (insert corporation) “points/rewards/discounts”

When you get a gun pointed at your face, or your home violated, or your car stolen, you tend to rebalance your principles a little. The cameras are a symptom of bigger problems.
This is the main issue. People aren't going by what may be the best solution long term, they are going by what they feel and experience in the moment. Right now people feel unsafe and they feel these systems increase their safety and seem unphased by the privacy ramifications. I personally still am not sure how I feel as I do value my privacy, but at the same time I also understand how this can be a useful tool. Many tools the police have also invade my privacy as well to some degree.

It's so hard to draw a line of what is good or bad, and it seems like the majority are okay with this technology. Which I think means the conversation should shift from should we allow these cameras at all, to instead, how can we allow them to be implemented in a way that minimizes privacy risk as much as possible while still remaining a valuable tool to solve crimes.

It's a bit of a protection racket isn't it? The police extort me for money and claim it will be used to protect me from the situations your present. Yet they do none of those things, because they can't be there in that moment. The police are not the solution. Spying on me is not the solution.
You also rebalance your principles when you rot your brain with vast quantities of fearmongering slop on your screens, and that’s way more common.
It’s a pretty unhelpful quite imho. You can use that quote to oppose anything beyond pure anarchy!

Yes the police can be abusive tyrants. But a society with no rules and no rule enforces is not a prosperous society. And yet if you lived in total anarchy you could oppose anything beyond pure rules and any rule enforcement with that quote.

Clearly the slope is very very very <breathe> very very slippery. And yet the ideal, dare I say necessary, point is not at the far end cap.

Can you show me the contract I signed that shows I agree to adhere to those rules? This is forced upon us with no choice by the individual other than to not participate and live in destitute conditions or in jail. The police are enforcers of rule, and for that I will always oppose them.