[gavinsyancey]

The point the poster is trying to make by "the ideal number ... is not zero" is:

There is a trade-off where a more complete and accessible surveillance apparatus could allow crimes to be solved but invites the system to be abused by police. So when we think about how much of a surveillance system we as a society want to allow, it is probably somewhere between "nothing" and "everything". Therefore,

- It is worth allowing some crimes to go unsolved in order to prevent abuse of the surveillance state. ("The ideal amount of unsolved crime is not zero")

- It might be worth allowing enough surveillance that it will inevitably be abused to some degree in order to help solve crime. ("The ideal amount of abuse of surveillance is not zero")

Thus instead of centering discussions around "thing bad", it's probably more productive to talk about how we can get as much as possible of the upside while reigning in a use, and considering where we want the tradeoff to be.

Given the power dynamics at play I'm not convinced I agree -- Flock is closely associated with Peter Thiel who is explicitly anti-democracy, and police are notorious for covering up crimes committed by fellow police. But I suppose it is worth considering that safe ethical surveillance (if it existed) could have some value, while keeping in mind that what we are getting is very far from that.