Post #1774406

2026-03-10 04:28 UTC

When talking about surveilling society at large, as this person is suggesting, it's important to remember that there is no such thing as surveilling a subset of the population. *Everyone* who crosses the boundaries of surveillance, without exception, gets surveilled. When you point a camera at a crowd, it does not selectively exclude everyone but your chosen subject: a camera photographs all. People and systems behind the camera then manipulate and match that data to suit their objectives, and that's where it becomes completely unaccountable, because *the data has already been collected on all.* Today, supposedly, it's dastardly men, the suggestion being that all others will be excluded and thus this extended surveillance of all public spaces must be benign for everyone who is not a dastardly man. But in other places and times, it was runaway slaves, or homosexuals. Recently it has been women seeking abortions and trans people and immigrants. Tomorrow it will be those guilty of wrongthink. And all are surveilled, because *everyone* is surveilled. This surveillance WILL be used to the maximum of its capability, and very quickly, regardless of whatever guidelines or original purpose or its stated goals are said to be in the beginning. These are nothing but lines in the sand that will be washed away almost immediately, because there's just no way to exclude specific groups from widespread surveillance, and our collective governments are far too corrupt and unstable and greedy for power to ever cut off their own access to it.

Replies (3)

@MasterBlaster@lemmy.world 2026-03-10 12:40

Exactly. This is a privacy issue, not a "men's" issue, otherwise I'd have found a "manosphere" forum for it (don't know if one actually exists on Lemmy). As you say, this is equivalent to "we must protect the *children*" as motivation for pretty much everything that takes away liberty, except it's the women who are the "children" in this version. It's just a means to getting the controls in place so it can be used freely to everybody's detriment.

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@Canconda@lemmy.ca 2026-03-10 15:57

CCTV operator here. One thing people misunderstand is that cameras don't tell a story, they corroborate a narrative. In other words the footage is often open to multiple interpretations, not just one side of the story. (We've seen this play out with the recent ICE shootings) One big difference between CCTV and these "smart lasers" is that CCTV is retroactive; Meanwhile this system appears to aim to *prevent* crimes. Anyone who has seen the movie Minority Report, knows where I'm going with this. > "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." - William Blackstone ~1760 Basically this system, if not transparent, could easily be used to falsely accuse and oppress people. Not just men either. I'm sure Jim Crow would have installed lasers on the water fountains if they had them.

Open ##1774453
@voxel@feddit.uk 2026-03-10 12:14

Open ##1774454