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docjaylast Monday at 10:26 PM1 replyview on HN

I don’t mean that I can’t imagine a scenario in which an imagined world has cameras covering every square inch, a 911 operator with their fingers hovering over the keyboard and ready to enter a license plate into the InstaLocate system, which then automatically triggers SWAT to be quick-released from a drone directly onto the current location of what is still called a “getaway car”, rather than “evidence.” But I can also imagine a situation with less steps wherein a spoon takes down an F-16, but I equally haven’t heard an argument for using spoons as air defense. ;)

Helping to solve a crime after the fact is certainly a thing, and that discussion has merit, but I think you’re taking creative license again with stopping a serial killer or spree killer “before they kill again.” That’s not really how murders play out, which is why there are special names for them.

It would be helpful for discourse, and for making your own argument, if the discussion was grounded in the reality of the sour world we live in now.


Replies

Ajedi32yesterday at 2:18 AM

So is it your position, based on what you just said, that people who have committed murder but have not yet been caught are no more likely to commit murder a second time than the average person?

I think my example of helping police catch a murderer "before they kill again" is not only "grounded in reality" but has, in fact, quite plausibly already happened thousands of times throughout the course of Flock's existence.

Now, whether I think that justifies mass surveillance is another matter entirely.