• TerribleHands [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          3 days ago

          Credit scores aren’t real actually but Chinese surveillance apparatus is massive and all-encompassing - I’m thinking specifically centralized CCTV and to a lesser extent government/police access to private social media. It does create a very safe and high-trust society because people know that wrongdoers are inevitably going to get caught.

          Wouldn’t trust American billionaires to implement a similar system but China proves that the theory at least works.

          • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            3 days ago

            Exactly. The problem isn’t one of theory, but of execution. This is the fundamental problem of books like 1984, with the creation the meme of “Freedom is Slavery”, or people who misquote Benjamin Franklin.

            We in the U S. already give up essential freedoms as part of the state apparatus, if the state cannot provide us with reliable security in exchange for those freedoms, then we do not owe anything to that state. The saddest part is that, in the past, these were essentials of the most basic theories of liberal government. It is unsurprising though, given the conservative state liberalism has retreated to. Now, there is only one protected class whose freedom or security matters, and the rest of us can essentially go fuck ourselves, with neither freedom nor security. Basically feudalism without God.

        • TerribleHands [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          2 days ago

          Hope you don’t mind me copy-pasting my other reply:

          Credit scores aren’t real actually but Chinese surveillance apparatus is massive and all-encompassing - I’m thinking specifically centralized CCTV and to a lesser extent government/police access to private social media. It does create a very safe and high-trust society because people know that wrongdoers are inevitably going to get caught.

          Wouldn’t trust American billionaires to implement a similar system but China proves that the theory at least works.

          • PeeOnYou [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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            2 days ago

            hmm…i guess i’d have to take your word for it because i don’t know how things operate in China, but i do agree that the system here will never be to the benefit of society as a whole

  • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    3 days ago

    So much for “land of the free”.

    This will probably be embraced by the same people who disobeyed covid lockdowns because “muh freedumz!”

  • Aggravationstation@feddit.uk
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    3 days ago

    The guy who helped a government develop a database system is in favour of the government developing data gathering systems? Well, I never…

    • 30_to_50_Feral_PAWGs [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      3 days ago

      A shit-ass database system that treats empty strings as null values, and doesn’t do automatic casting between ISO date-formatted strings and date/datetime types, yet costs a fuckton to license. Even if he weren’t a multibillionaire piece of shit, that fucking prick still deserves the guillotine just for OracleDB’s unholy existence; that software wasn’t released: it escaped.

    • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 days ago

      Oh wow! Wouldn’t you know all the systems stopped working specifically in the general area at coincidentally the exact same time this rich boi was doing something naughty. Geee I guess itxs all hearsay and inadmissible now. Shucks. That’s too bad. Case closed.

  • homhom9000 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    3 days ago

    I was watching 90 day fiance the other way and one of the persons wife is in China. When they were driving around he would see a “flashing light” and freak out. It got to the point where they had a fight over it, she was like “I donno maybe the apartment camera or something” and he’d make her drive around to catch it again. On stormfront, people were saying it’s probably China watching them and other propaganda bs.

    Now I know in the US, there’s hella cameras in public places plus we’re encouraged to surveil on our own with ring cameras and the like. So what’s so scary about a camera flash? It’s scary when it’s tied to the evil seeseepee but we’ll gladly sign our own privacy away for any private company that contracts with the state anyway

    • culpritus [any]@hexbear.net
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      3 days ago

      Amazing, willingly participating in a reality show where you are constantly being filmed, and freaking out about some random light because ebil communism!

  • laziestflagellant [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    3 days ago

    Cyberpunk styles are going to involve makeup that puts extra eyes and facial features to confuse AI face trackers or even just going outside with billionaire face masks on

    • Beaver [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 days ago

      The Deserter: The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death… the sweetest, most courageous people in the world… (he’s silent for a second) You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you know.

      You: What?

      The Deserter: That you should not make the mistake of mistake of anthropomorphizing the bourgeoisie

      the-deserter