sugar_in_your_tea

I would delete my account the moment I'm too lazy to check if I've already deleted it.

I disagree that anything you describe could actually be both commercially viable and deployable without authoritarian involvement

You haven't heard of Ring cameras? Commercial security systems? They do basically what I'm describing, just not as well because they don't have as much of an incentive. Are end users willing to pay for these more advanced models? No, so consumer grade cameras stick to object detection like deer vs racoon instead of specific individual detection (e.g. scanning eyes).

Governments, however, are willing to pay that amount. Why? Because they think it'll help them detect criminals, and they think that helps keep people safe. It's an extension of the HOA idea, just with government-scale funds backed up with law enforcement to go after threats. That, in itself, isn't authoritarian, but setting up such a system opens the door for authoritarians to take control and misuse it.

I'd go so far as to say that the people in your theoretical HOA are analogous to supporters of a authoritarian regime.

Analogous, sure, but the HOA has no enforcement arm for non-residents, so all they can do is ask the police to intervene. That's the difference with a city, it has a police force it can order to intervene using information from that system. It's the mixing of enforcement and surveillance that makes it authoritarian.

So a surveillance system is not itself authoritarian, it's only authoritarian of there's some enforcement arm to enforce obedience or punish disobedience.

If it is nearly impossible to meaningfully use apolitically, then it is not apolitical.

Again, I disagree. Something is only political when used for political ends.

What's crazy is I agree with some of what he says, but disagree entirely with his company.

Basically, he says the Antichrist promises security in exchange for giving up your freedom. However, his company does exactly that, it promises security in exchange for taking away freedom from the people. So at best he's a hypocrite and at worst an accelerationist.

I agree that people are willing to trade freedom for security, but I disagree that's what governments should do. Governments need to protect freedoms first, and security second.

Similarly, even if HOAs could deploy a system like that, that’d make them authoritarian.

That really depends how the system is used. If it explicitly doesn't record regular residents and people who have signed up officially as visitors (and homeowners can review footage), I don't think the camera system itself would really be authoritarian. Yeah, the system would be capable of violating privacy, but as long as the system is transparent and reviewable by the residents, I think it can be privacy-respecting. Basically, it would be like a home security system, but across a neighborhood, and it can even be self-hosted to not let third parties access the data (and police requests would go through the HOA board, which consists of residents).

That's my point. If the system itself can be used in a privacy-respecting way (and the vast majority can), even if it's typically not used that way, the system itself cannot be authoritarian. If an institution uses it in an authoritarian way, then the institution is authoritarian.

In short:

1. cameras are not authoritarian
2. databases are not authoritarian
3. license plate and face recognition software isn't authoritarian
4. connecting 1-3 together in a searchable way isn't authoritarian (would be a fun hobby project)
5. Sharing info from 4 isn't authoritarian (again, could be a fun hobby with friends)
6. An institution (gov't, business, HOA, etc) using 4 and/or 5 to enforce policy on citizens/employees/residents/etc is authoritarian

I have friends that use home cameras to do object classification as a hobby, mostly to identify and fee record wildlife. I've also heard of people doing this to identify package deliveries and catch package thiefs. Sharing those models with others on the internet is largely the same idea as what flock is doing, and with enough data, similar solutions to what Palantir is doing could be done entirely by hobbyists.

The products Flock and Palantir aren't authoritarian in and of themselves, it becomes authoritarian when those products are used to enforce policy.

Letting the shampoo sit is only needed for medicated shampoo, like for dandruff, and that's so the medicine has time to work. For every other type of shampoo, you should rinse it right after thoroughly getting to the scalp to not irritate the scalp.

I use dandruff shampoo, hence why I wait before rinsing. If I didn't have dandruff, I'd probably do shampoo last.

I just checked all of my shampoo bottles (apparently we have almost 10... we have shampoo for dyed hair, dandruff, kids, dry hair, etc). None of them recommend waiting before rinsing, not even the dandruff shampoo (well, Selsun Blue doesn't, can't check the other since it's in my SO's native language, which I can't read). I remember seeing some other brands mention waiting (I think Head and Shoulders?), so YMMV.

Some solutions here are technically illegal to make laws about. The government cannot force a company to give away its copyrighted server code, not even in compiled form. Since there are alternatives that don't require giving away copyrighted material, it's better to keep it vague.

So it's both the friendliest to companies and the easiest to pass as a law.

Yeah, I never appreciated how long it takes to wash hair until I washed my daughter's shoulder-length hair. My hair has always been short, so a shampoo would only take 10-20 sec to get everything lathered and maybe 30 sec to rinse. My daughter's hair took about double that time for both steps.

So yeah, I can see dealing with long hair taking significantly longer. That said, that's more like 10-15 min instead of 5 min, not 30 min.

If you're struggling with body dysphoria, wouldn't you want to be naked for a shorter amount of time?

I have a waterproof ereader, but there's no way I'd read in the shower. It's much more comfortable to read on my bed or on a chair. It's also too noisy to listen to audiobooks, unless I'm wearing noise-cancelling headphones, but then I can't wash my hair or ears properly.

So yeah, in and out in 5 min, and then read in more comfortable place.

Simple:

1. get everything wet - 10 sec?
2. shampoo, but don't rinse - 30s-1m?
3. lather soap everywhere, with a scrubby (loofah or similar) - 1-2. min
4. rinse top down - 1-2 min?

That takes about 5 minutes, more if I shave at the same time (am dude, but don't shave every day). I don't think I've ever taken more than 10 min.

I would argue that such a product would be by its nature political, because it’s only practical use case was the furtherance of a political goal.

Again, I disagree. Surveillance has a lot of use cases outside of government, and a huge use case is keeping the government in check. Palantir could have sold its services to non-profits like the ACLU as a check on local, state, and law enforcement agencies. They could have sold it to HOAs and neighborhood watch associations as an early warning system for repeat offenders.

The government skirting the 4th amendment (and a few others) doesn't automatically make its sub-contractor's products "authoritarian," it makes its use of those products authoritarian.

So a system that does so (like the ones sold to the govt) is a political software product.

I disagree with that conclusion. The use by the government is authoritarian, but that doesn't make the product authoritarian.

To me where it gets tricky is when private entities grow to government-sized proportions, and begin to use these same tools for similar purposes

A private entity can do authoritarian things, like spying on its employees or customers. Authoritarianism isn't strictly tied to governments, but anything that acts like a government. Here's the first definition I found:

Characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority, as against individual freedom.

Software can't really favor obedience to authority, it can't really deny you your freedoms, it's just software. Likewise for a camera system. The only way those things can be authoritarian is if paired with some form of enforcement arm, like corporate security or law enforcement. So that combined system is authoritarian, the cameras or software on their own cannot be authoritarian.

That's my point.

And ideally give enough forewarning that the community can build it before they shut the servers off.