That’s why I only buy Chinese.

dude, buying people is illegal!

;-)

It’s kinda hilarious that propaganda in the US talked about “EU is always watching you” as a part of the propaganda against government regulations. While some places over there are starting to see the rise of fascist parties, I think awareness of the US’s fall into fascism is hurting their cause as people are a little more aware than they might otherwise be.

And while I don’t generally like any government monitoring, if I had to choose, I’d choose EU monitoring over US monitoring any day, considering how our democracy has long been secondary to capitalism (with our own special twist of that old socialist phrase, for us “Taking the resources of the many to concentrate in the hands of the few ultra-wealthy”)

Our oligarchs have corrupted the entire system, and our government allows us just enough to survive while funelling all the resources up to the oligarchs. They have more than they could possibly spend, and they still demand more More MORE M O R E.

Back to cameras: In this case, more data, more control, more intimidation, more fear.

I know a lot of times replies are viewed as “You’re wrong!” but this, if anything, I think reinforces your comment:

I went looking for statistics and couldn’t find any, but did run across these assertions:

1. CCTVs of undefined/all types aupposedly increased crime clearance rates (“solved”) by around 20%. I suspect most of these are higher-quality ones in businesses or on public streets
2. Amazon claims 55% reduction in crime in pilot programs with doorbell cameras but a study by some org of that situation found no statistical difference

Certainly people are becoming more aware of those cameras and perhaps covering up to disguise their identity. So at most they might deter someone from going for your house, but as they become even more common, that effect will probably drop off.

But what if some stranger loses their dog? You could have helped, but NOoOOOOooooo you had to be selfish with your privacy you MONSTER.

I love seeing this story… it reminds me of 30 years ago when I worked in the telephone industry. Heard about telephone copmanies rolling out service in very very rural areas - running signals over barbed-wire fences because it was too expensive to run dedicated cables. That did degrade the signal, but it worked.

I know it’s a completely different thing entirely, but it just gave me nostalgia remembering hearing about that.

The good folks in the USA have lost faith in the USA. Alas, the bad folks remain in power. heh

It’s worth saying again: Google can fuck itself.

And I generally like Google’s products. But they make plenty of money off of my data to say: Fuck Google.