In totalitarian 1984 China, government surveillance is so pervasive that even private companies that have no law enforcement function will send surveillance data to the state.
It's pretty funny how people in the west worry about surveillance China while same and worse is happening at home. Western media constantly running negative stories about China is a really insidious propaganda tactic because the implication behind these stories is that this sort of thing couldn't happen in the west. In effect what they're saying is look at how scary China is, aren't you lucky that you live in a free and democratic western society.
Lately ive started actually counting the number of cameras I see when I go out, and the number is staggering
Do you feel like adding them into OpenStreetMap? If so, https://mapcomplete.org/surveillance makes it easy for you.
You would be suprised how many people are actively fighting against it in the west. Autonomous vehicles vs civilians is a huge topic in San Francisco, which is the key difference between the two countries. One accepted it, the other is actively fighting against it.
What we see in the west is what's generally known as controlled opposition. There is a bit of preformative dissent allowed to make people feel like they have a say in these things. The reality is that if you're think you're fighting it, then you're way too late to the party. Everybody has a phone that tracks them everywhere, plenty of people now have devices like Alexa that record all their conversations. All this data goes to corporate servers, and then straight to NSA and anybody else willing to pay for it. The west is one of the most surveilled societies in human history, but people living in the west don't even realize it.
The type of surveillance and who its going to is not necessarily the same body, and both corpo and government are not always on the same side on the issue. Which is why its such a gray area, at least in the states.
For instance, although San Francisco approved of the Waymo/Cruise usage in the city, it also was one of the leading figures that blamed Cruise for its ”interruption" that killed a homeless guy who was not hit by a cruise vehicle. But a bus, which they blamed cruise for interrupting the hospital van.
Its also hard to compare China and the U.S due to how the governments are structured. Yes, its fairly common knowlege that the NSA has backdoors in a lot of things, its still fundamentally a Federal branch which has its powers restricted on what it can do due to States rights being significantly larger, vs a more centralized government who can act almost immediately on some action.
Take example for something fairly basic, weed. Even if weed was federally illegal, the states rights usually matter more unless youre specifically on federally owned institution (e.g a military base)
The federal government in US literally has the power to disappear US citizens and ship them off to places like gitmo without any process. Not sure how anybody can pretend their powers are somehow limited. Something basic like weed does not threaten the regime, take something basic like reporting war crimes and see how long before you're disappeared and tortured.
So would you claim that Justin Stoner for instance is currently deported or in jail for whistleblowing against the Maywand district murders?
Not implying that it doesnt happen, but youre believing that they have more power than they actually do, a governemnt thats already approaching its next shutdown because it routinely doesnt get stuff done.
here's what I claim https://theintercept.com/2019/06/21/guantanamo-bay-indefinite-detention/
But you mention you couldnt report warcrimes when someone has clearly done ao far and is not in the situation that you say. Not saying that there arent people in Gitmo who are conpletely innocent locked away there forever, but its not the government thats locking up all whistleblowers as its clearly untrue. Especially when its the butt of the joke that there are way to many prisoners in the system (as there are), youd think that if they were serious, gitmo would also be as ridiculously overcrowded as regular prisons are but it isn't.
Look at Assange and Manning as examples, is that somehow untrue just because your regime is selective with whom they make an example of?
The point is that they can disappear your ass any time they want.
Which escaped the country essentially due to persecution, something that happens to far fewer people then the whole lot. Its not like this is exclusively a US issue as persecution also exists in China as well, as while I dont agree with said religions, tensions with controversial groups like the Falun Gong essentially forced the group to move out of China.
Fundamentially it ends up how the community responds to it. Like in your case, there are civilians fighting against keeping the prisoner held up. Which is in line of whats happening with the AI vehicles of the OP.
Imagine defending cults like Falun Gong. Meanwhile, I've already explained how providing the illusion of being allowed to resist the system is by design. It keeps people like you from realizing how oppressive the system actually is and makes you feel like you have freedoms. A dog that never ventures to the end of its leash doesn't know it's on a leash.
Im not defending them, tbh i hate a lot of their actions,.im just saying they were 100% evicted by their said government due to surveilance. but what your saying doesnt stop the notion that I had originally stated, a lot of civilians are fighting against the said change, in an action that currently only affects 2 regions in the U.S.
Hell the U.S right now is still trying to prosecute actual people that attempted to overthrow the government. Thats shows how reletively little power the federal government has vs a more centralized government in China.
It boils down to the pros and cons of a centralized government. If its centralized, you can do things more efficiently (e.g Chinas inital handling of Covid amd vaccinating its population was great), but it has a lot more power over minority groups and what they can and cant do vs the U.S Federal System which has a limitwd set of powers
I, on the other hand, think that predatory cults should absolutely be evicted by their said government. And it's adorable you think that jan 6 was some real threat to power in US. That stunt will simply be used to justify further slide into fascism and Americans will happily cheer it on too.
So are you arguing police state is good? What are we debating at in the first point then if we think police state is bad with cameras helping cops?
No, I'm arguing that the west is just as much of a police state as China is in every way that matters. However, the difference is that China has a government that represents the majority while the west has governments that represent the oligarchs.
the key difference between the two countries. One accepted it, the other is actively fighting against it.
China has one of the strictest personal data protection laws in the world, surpassing the EU GDPR in some respects. The United States has basically nothing.
Your statement is correct, but I'm guessing this isnt what you were intending to imply.
Not implying it doesnt have some strict protection, in China, you legitamately have to formally sue a company to get peoples information (e.g Mihoyo often sues discord to find the user information that leaked info). The thing is depending on how severe the surveilance is, there are people actively fighting it in the west, hence the whole movement about disabling autonomous vehicles for instance with cones.
The implication here being that what, out of 1.5 billion Chinese people, none of them are against the current policies? Thats's a hell of a conclusion
Im not saying there arent any fighting it, definely not a black and white situation. But ones outright going out and attempting to destroy the said system, enough so that even the coty who approved the usage is also fighing it to some extent.
Theres a reason why these cars are not approved in most of the U.S yet, as there are a LOT of people who dont want them
I wonder how many mobile surveillance devices this company can afford to lose before they go bust? I am sure there are cheap ways to take them out. Like blankets or spray paint.
