If Xinjiang were under public surveillance, with the results accessible to the whole world, the Chinese government might tread more carefully.

As is, one of their biggest enablers is being able to effectively deny access to the area.

Edit: I'd note this is generally an effective tactic of oppressive regimes. It takes dedicated, brave, well-funded people to access an area that's even semi-denied. Much less regularly. And the internet / world's attention is fickle. No updates, no photos, no video? No one pushing for justice.

> If Xinjiang were under public surveillance, with the results accessible to the whole world, the Chinese government might tread more carefully.

Not really. The world already has a pretty good idea that China has incarcerated millions of people for what wouldn't be considered offences or adequate standards of proof in the West as part of wider political struggles. And livestreaming is going to end at the point of arrest. A system tracking the full history of every one of those millions of individuals' movements prior to incarceration would add no useful insight into the nuances of the conflict or rhetorical weight to arguments to take any form of action against the Chinese government, but would be exceptionally useful to helping said government in tracking down anyone that has ever interacted with $PersonOfInterest or visited $Place.

There's a reason that people campaigning for the world to take interest in human rights issues in their region do so by broadcasting explanations of their cause and how brave and inspiring their missing friends are rather than broadcasting their whereabouts.

You're looking at something and calling it 'surveillance' because you don't yet have a word to describe the entire thing. It's too new so you see it through your 'old eyes'. You noticed there was a camera involved and you knew what that was so you ran with it.

It's the proverbial blind man whose hand has happened to land on the tusk and he tells his companions, "It's a spear!". You're not seeing the whole elephant because you've never seen one.

It benefits you when other people have knowledge about the world. It benefits you if other people have the knowledge to drive safely. It benefits you that your neighbours have a basic knowledge of germ theory and don't throw their sewage in the streets like medieval peasants. It benefits you that your fellow voters have at least a basic education and can make somewhat informed decisions. It benefits you that medical knowledge isn't locked away in some vault in Alexandria but it's in the mind of the doctor whose preventing an outbreak of some disease you happen to be susceptible to.

Did you not read the things I was able to learn just from my first node? We can give so many people free access to information that would push back darkness, fear and superstition just a little further. And these people would do and build things that would make your life better.

So instead of channelling the Archbishop of Canterbury telling Bible translator John Wycliffe that too much knowledge will corrupt the commoners, open your eyes.

How many people are actually detained? How long they're detained for? What requirements have been made for the population when they're not detained (e.g. submitting biometric data)?

These are all questions to which the answer is at best murky.

Facts answering these questions would empower opponents of Chinese oppression. Whether that would be enough to offset the privacy issues is a fair debate. But it's not like you're losing anything the Chinese panopticon hasn't already taken away.

I agree with you, but Falun Gong is more than a mere “simple meditation group.” It’s more like a Chinese Scientology.

I'm interested in knowing what you think about my response to someone else below who was inquiring about my 'Deep Schizophrenia' AI model -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19537047

Any step made in the direction you suggest will lead to further avenues of monetization of individuals, and in my opinion, dehumanising them /us /yourself.

I can see a plethora of negative impacts and influences on the ability for a person to express themselves, in what would have been a "natural" set of responses, if your project is even remotely successful.

You think the whole of the human condition can be mapped and measured onto a landscape? Although I have serious doubts that you can: Great! I'd suggest you train it on what is called "Modal Music", whose very fundamentals use the same language (landscape, narrative) that you describe. It's found in many Mediterranean music styles (greek, turkish, arabic...).

I'd suggest that people are not just one thing. We don't hate all the time, we don't laugh all the time, we don't work all the time. I think treating humans as an equation is just as demeaning as the current political elite and marketeers treat us, but that's not (ironically) a big concern of mine. I think this project naive and the consequences not well thought through.

The day you tell everyone your CVV codes on your credit cards, that you use a public bathroom with the door open, that you go to work naked, that you take the curtains off the walls, that you publicly list all of your passwords, is the day that I'll take you seriously.

Personally, I view your project in a manner akin to upskirting. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but our moral compasses are facing in very different directions it seems -- despite the fact that I can see you're trying to make something beneficial, whereas I only see horror. Where you see a stop gap in the surveillance state we currently live in, I see it as a precursor to even more horrible practices, for which an increase general violence will be inevitable. Whenever there is a camera there is surveillance. By running algos over this surveillance, it will make those in power more powerful before your rose coloured view of your perfect world even gets close to being materialised.

I am utterly horrified that you seem proud by these words of yours:

> I now know most of my neighourhood's average height, individual walking gait identification pattern, estimated salary based on car model, family structure, daily schedules, how many (visibly) pregnant women, on what days in July the guy across the street mowed his lawn, the pattern he mowed it in the 8th time and that it was the same day my other neighbour had 5 guests over for a get together. I can rewind and replay it from multiple angles in 3D. If I really want, I can convert it to spreadsheet format, etc.

Every single thing you mentioned here can be used against us. I hope that you spend some time reflecting upon this. Ultimately, I hope that you gain some wisdom and think differently.