Posted by throw7 4 hours ago
My tax $ went into buying and setting up those cameras to monitor bad seeds in my neighborhood.
However the agent here with the power is the state and local and federal government. They're just going to do drones next if they can't do sensor masts.
Everyone who authorized this funding needs to be voted out. If we really care the signal is to take away the power of people who decided to use this.
Yes, and we should continue to nullify convictions for activists fighting this technology on the streets. If they use drones lets shoot them down and nullify those charges too. The court is the final stand and juries are where we the citizens have actual power.
Stop blaming the victims.
As far as I can tell, people who claim the former are almost overwhelming the ones voting for the people who are worst about stuff like this. I've honestly never seen anyone claim the latter though, so if that's what you believe, elaborating more would be helpful.
I'm surprised that you've never encountered this persepective before, it seems a very common one to me.
The first thing I think about is the South Park episode in which the elementary school had to vote for a school mascot and they were given the choice of either "a giant douche" or "a turd sandwich".
The second thing is another South Park episode (circa 2009), for which they actually produced two episodes (and aired one) for the Presidential election between McCain and Obama. Regardless of who would win, the plot was the same: the winner colludes with the loser in a National Treasure-style heist, with the election just being part of the setup.
In the latter example, the message seems to be that it doesn't matter who wins because the same outcomes occur. The former example probably doesn't need explaining.
Anyway, yeah, it would be nice to choose something better than a turd sandwich but when the other option is a giant douche, what is there to do? The way I see it, you either vote for someone who you know stands no chance (Jill Stein, btw), don't vote at all, or vote for the turd sandwich (or the giant douche, if that's your persuasion).
As far as the one real-world example you gave goes, I'm not convinced that someone who feels the need to avoid making definitive statements about whether vaccines cause autism is a great example of someone who wants to effect meaningful change rather than play the politics game, but that's mostly an orthogonal point.
Bernie Sanders (prevented from winning the primary via unelected superdelegates)
Ross Perot (suddenly withdrew under murky circumstances and later claimed his family was threatened)
Both wanted significant change, although they were reformists rather than revolutionaries.
Sanders ran an insurgent campaign while denigrating the party, and didn't win more votes. I seriously don't understand the argument that the person with fewer votes should win the nomination, although I am receptive to hearing a coherent articulation thereof. (Superdelegates did not enter the picture until tens of millions of votes were cast, with Sanders trailing by millions of votes.)
Sanders was on track to win in 2015 but the media counted all superdelegates for Clinton throughout the campaign, costing him votes in later states where voters didn’t show up, assuming he lost. I guess this isn’t entirely the party’s fault and they did reform the system somewhat afterwards.
This was...an eminently reasonable response to Perot's own actions?
> Sanders was on track to win in 2015
Yes, like Clinton was on track to win in 2007. "On track to win" is necessarily filtered through a set of lenses that may or may not be accurate in reality. He didn't earn the votes, so he lost. There's nothing unfair about that.
Apple is rumored to be integrating cameras into AirPods[0] that are cloud connected for "AI." They supposedly won't be able to take "pictures" and "video" but will transmit essentially the same information for AI/Siri.
Between the reaction to Flock and also the Meta Glasses; I'm legitimately surprised that companies aren't reading the Tea leaves here. But, no, I guess everything needs a camera and a cloud feed of that camera's vision now.
PS - And before you say "that is just a rumor" the video file was extracted from Apple's macOS 26.7 RC that showcases how it may work.
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/17/camera-equipped-airpods...
> Look how the populist right has failed its primaries so hard.
From my bubble (we’re all in bubbles), it seems that the populist right are in bed with the technocrat authoritarians, e.g. the Vance-Thiel connection. Losses in primaries would indicate to me that the technocrat authoritarians are not succeeding in purchasing politicians.
But it was a strange election. The “establishment” candidate was a no name who refused to do any debates. Rarely ever seem to say much, and when he did, it was mostly just empty parroting of Trumps agenda. Maybe that’s truly what that district wanted.
What was interesting was how Massie seemed slated to win until the very end. Suddenly at the last minute, all sorts of smear ads and all kinds of (honestly very mild) accusations of personal impropriety were being slung left and right and days before the election, polls swap showing Gallrein in the lead, a complete reversal from the months before. A man I’ve never heard speak anything that wasn’t just party lines or something about being a SEAL.
Now I understand that polling isn’t always accurate. But I’ve seen the same exact thing play out nearly the same way in other recent primaries. Feels fishy.
Now they need to buy new politicians and will definitely try.
Interesting, in my bubble “populist” right refers more younger more paleo conservative types who feel betrayed by MAGA. Many of these people hate Thiel and Technocrats as much as my Marxist friends.
I’m gonna guess (and tell me if I’m wrong) the disconnect is that you may be referring to the Trump admin itself which is indeed in bed with Thiel types. Personally I don’t really bother considering them populist anymore. They seem to mostly be interested in enriching their little circle.
Tea Party gave the blueprint for 21st century populist rightwing politics, eschewing much of the baggage of Bush neoconservativism. Then Trump turned the volume up to 12. I’d be surprised to see more novel populist rightwing political dynamics as it feels like the movement is running out of gas after a 16 year run (since 2010 primaries). The disillusionment is at a peak.
Or we could just build more prisons I suppose.
Faith in governments is not only low, people are pretty sure any power governments have will be abused.
The equation is a little bigger than that, basically.
Just look at the 10's of thousands of people who die every year so that we have the convenience of driving cars. Not to mention the millions whose health are affected by the air pollution.
All of them.
But also you're going to have to elaborate what you mean by life being considered the highest value. Have you seen how we treat one another? We're always looking for rationales as to why someone else's life should be considered unimportant.
If you state it in the form of an actual argument that sets up a meaningful comparison, you'll find that it falls apart completely.
Which makes me wonder, why would you ask such a question? None of the answers I can think of are flattering to you.
I don't object to Flock cameras or any other public cameras. But if I did, I would write to my congress person rather than commit a crime and destroy someone's property.
There is a juggernaut of surveillance consuming everything in its path, where laws are skirted to install surveillance instruments and due process might as well not exist. And you're talking about "protecting property" and pulling out your little pen and paper to tell your congressperson "i'd like you to try this instead, please"
I'm sorry, no. You don't necessarily have to be the one taking action in the streets, by all means write your letter, but please don't criticize others and pretend that your approach will get you any further than other peoples approach
> It's terrible that an innocent black man died. But this property destruction has to stop!
when, in reality, the perspective should be much more:
"It's terrible that there is this property destruction. But these innocent deaths have to stop!"
Hyperbole, some may some reading this, "We're talking about license plate readers[1], not people being shot or killed", but let's be real, there's very much a non-zero risk of that happening as a result of Flock-spawned encounters (and to be even more real, the culture from the top, as espoused very directly by its CEO is that false positives are a better outcome, and should be how the system works, rather than a false negative, because, ugh, "false negatives don't advance our mission to a world without crime, thanks to Flock").
[1] And they do far more than recognize license plates.
Your congressman is having a nice steak dinner with representatives of the company while some poor staffer pastes the generic response in the letter sent back to you.