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There is already case law that makes the records collected by government through these methods no different than any other public records, especially since they are publicly visible license plate numbers.

That has its own problems because it shields/deflects from the bigger issue of being treasonous, i.e., grotesque violation of the law of the Constitution, through mass surveillance that has also already been abused for various kinds of criminal acts by law enforcement.


Why would they break into individual hardware when they have unfettered access to the whole system in certain countries’ cases and can likely just hack into it in more adversarial cases? It is one of the several reasons why … yes, I know YC backed and funded Flock … the company and everyone in government that contracts for them to provide this mass surveillance service, is objectively and inherently treasonous. But don’t shoot the messenger just because people don’t like the message.

“Whoopsie, my negligence I shouldn’t have been engaging in in the first place” is no exemption from being a traitor, betrayal.

What that means for society and if and what it does about it is a different question. Based on historical trends, it all probably won’t matter since we’ve clearly crossed a threshold and the “PPP” tyranny (different from the trillion dollars in PPP loans that were forgiven and contributed to the inflation) is upon us because it wasn’t prevented when it still could have been.

I don’t think people here are even tracking what is going on in TX, UT, LA (and soon to be nation wide); where as of Jan 1st all new accounts will have to provide government ID to install any app on a mobile device.


LinkedIn has always struck me like a kind of contemporary slave management/market place, only one in which pick-mes try to be the best alpha slave they can be.

The fact that you are linked in, as in a chain, sure does not help with dispelling my impression.


I totally understand your sentiment, but you could just check a random assortment of license plate numbers you collected while driving around, which also includes yours. At the very least that would effectively obfuscate your license plate sufficiently that it could not be attributed beyond other methods that likely already have done so.

They de facto are because they only place cameras in public places and on public land by contract with the government in one form or another; be it with a treasonous sheriff or a treasonous state executive and legislature. The public would not be talking about Flock if they had not worked to create a treasonous surveillance state and instead only did things like monitored truck movements in a logistics depot. The private contracts for things like HOA neighborhoods and corporations, e.g., big box store loss prevention and customer data tracking, but those’s are a totally different issue that have nothing to do with the use of public funds and power for mass surveillance.

This feels a lot like "Yeah, but we'll do it anyways until a court makes us stop; because the profit is more than the fine"

but thry're not literally the government and the relevant laws only affect the literal government.

No, there is legal precedent that private companies who perform government services are subject to the same laws.

This is generally not the case.

“Big oil” is not demonic it is your God as much as it is everyone’s God that uses electricity and all the things you have that are only possible through oil. You are likely not even remotely aware of just how many things you have and do that are only possible because of oil.

Hint: it’s basically 100% of things you have and do. Even your minor deities, Renewable Energy are all a creation and possible due to your God, Big Oil.


How about these companies go from "fuck your democracy lol" to "okay this is bad, this is how we can attempt to fix it". They are among the richest corporations humanity has ever seen.

The dependence on oil is physically plausible, the constant political or public subversion is not.


Is there a rule that you get to be an asshole as long as your products are useful?

When people demonize "Big Oil" they don't mean the product. They mean how the people who run it behave.


“Usually”, “not intentionally” does not exactly convey your own sense of confidence that it’s not happening. That just stood out to me.

As someone who knows how all this is unfolding because I’ve been part of implementing it, I agree, there’s no “Unified Plan for Enslavement”. You have to think of it more like a hive mind of mostly Cluster B and somewhat Cluster A people that you rightfully identify as making up the corporations and governments. Some call it a swarm, which is also helpful in understanding it; the murmuration of a flock of psychopaths moving and shifting organically, while mostly remaining in general unison.

Your last quote is of course a useful rule of thumb too, however, I would say it’s more useful to just assume narcissistic motivations in everything in the contemporary era, even if it does not always work out for them the way one faction had hoped or strategized; Nemesis be damned, and all.


I think the quote is misused. Narcissistic self interest is neither incompetence nor malice. It's something else entirely.

It's malice. Nobody ever sees themselves as the bad guy. They always have some rationalization of why what they're doing is justified.

I'm not bad, I only did $bad_thing to teach you a lesson!

Which brings up what IMHO should be the main takeaway from this:

The first requirement to fall into this trap is to believe you can't fall into this trap. It's still possible to do malicious things even when you believe to your very core that you're not a malicious person.

The only way to avoid it is a healthy habit of critical self-reflection. Be the first to question your own motives and actions.


Are you aware you are saying that on HN of YC, the home of such wonderful projects as Flock?

I guess there is some disagreement about Flock being a wonderful project?

What you or your politician friends may not understand is that “good people stopping bad things” is a very easily manipulated group, because it often is emotion based and reactionary. It is how America has been dismembered, little by little over the decades, good people doing good to stop the bad.

A maybe as clear as possible example of this is the Patriot Act, even though it’s now 24 years old. It was so easy to manipulate people being emotional and thinking they were doing good and stopping bad, when in reality they were doing the opposite.

I won’t even bother listing several other examples because people are still very deeply invested in those manipulations, because no one wants to believe a) they were so easily fooled and b) what they were raised to believe was just manipulative lies and actually bad, while being told it was good and supporting it made them good. It’s far easier thinking of oneself as good…which is the easily manipulated part.

It’s all very standard psychological manipulation stuff, it just takes on whole other self-fulfilling characteristics when it ascends to a complete majority scale, because things can’t be bad if everyone believes… was trained on it all their lives… right?


That’s what’s so pernicious about this manipulative tactic; you’re protecting the children, after all, right?

The real motivation behind this effort is not protecting children (the signal for that is all over the place), it’s about interrupting and conditioning society for a total surveillance state that controls or suppresses speech and thought. As always, the “think of the children” is just a typically cynical, narcissistic manipulation of people’s natural instincts to protect children.

Of course the underlying motivation is totalitarian. What, do you think they’re just going to come out and say “ok, peasants, we are not going to implement totalitarianism now”? No, they always sneak it in little by little, just as they always have, to the point that people still don’t understand what is going on in spite of things being as bad as they already are.

This is basically grooming, and no, the van does not have candy in it, kid.

If they actually cared about kids, they would have not banned and controlled adults from engaging in legal things freely, or they would have banned pornography as a clear societal ill. They could have also barred children from the open internet in general by allowing children only on a white/allow list; which is exponentially easier to implement, there is government justification, they are not full legal persons, and it can be enforced and penalized with existing child endangerment laws… you give access to a child, you are punished, just like if you, e.g., give children access to alcohol or any number of things.

What they choose to implement instead was that adults have to reveal their identity, essentially digital “show me your papers!”

The ruling class even constantly, openly talk about how they want everyone to have to provide their real identity on the internet to speak. They’re narcissists; all you have to do is listen to what they do and say to the audience they seek admiration from to see through the manipulation and lies directed towards you.

The dots are right next to each other and are labeled A and B. I am always a bit confused why so many people cannot, maybe don’t want to connect obvious dots; maybe because of what it means, not wanting to face reality because it causes discomfort in what they believe about things and themselves?

“I supported them and voted for them/this system. How could they be totalitarian? I would never vote for totalitarian control over myself, because I am smart and good. Therefore their intentions and motivations must be pure”. It’s a common abuse trap. It is also the underlying psychological manipulation mechanics of other cults and con artists, not just contemporary politicians.


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