Former US President Jimmy Carter dead at 100

[Max Rockatansky]

In terms of violent crime, the US hit a historic peak in 1980. Nationally the homicide rate was over 10 murders per 100,000 people. The rate hovers around half that level or less today. The public wouldn't know this with the way the media reports "news." All the emotional amplification to instill fear and anger would have viewers thinking crime is worse than ever.

Fear mongering, safety theater and security theater actually do have a mitigating effect.  People are safer from violent crime than have been in half century but yet don't feel safe.  People who don't feel safe report things to the police.

[Rothman]

In terms of violent crime, the US hit a historic peak in 1980. Nationally the homicide rate was over 10 murders per 100,000 people. The rate hovers around half that level or less today. The public wouldn't know this with the way the media reports "news." All the emotional amplification to instill fear and anger would have viewers thinking crime is worse than ever.

Fear mongering, safety theater and security theater actually do have a mitigating effect.  People are safer from violent crime than have been in half century but yet don't feel safe.  People who don't feel safe report things to the police.

"That [enter minority here] is in the park..."

Sounds great.

[Max Rockatansky]

In terms of violent crime, the US hit a historic peak in 1980. Nationally the homicide rate was over 10 murders per 100,000 people. The rate hovers around half that level or less today. The public wouldn't know this with the way the media reports "news." All the emotional amplification to instill fear and anger would have viewers thinking crime is worse than ever.

Fear mongering, safety theater and security theater actually do have a mitigating effect.  People are safer from violent crime than have been in half century but yet don't feel safe.  People who don't feel safe report things to the police.

"That [enter minority here] is in the park..."

Sounds great.

It isn't.  I loathe each one of the items I listed.  To me the trade off of constant surveillance for safety sake isn't worth the price.

Safety theater at work in particular has been a PIA for me.  It has replaced actual safety mitigation practices in my workplace.  We rather try to scare people than provide adequate training or corrective managment when necessary.

[Bobby5280]

In some respects the rapid proliferation of surveillance technology doesn't prevent certain kinds of crimes. That's because many of the people who are criminally inclined are not blessed with intelligence or impulse control. They do stupidly rash and violent things when they're in the moment. After the fact they make sloppy attempts to cover their tracks. But ever improving technology gets their tit caught in the ringer at an ever more efficient pace.

Here in Lawton the local police department has been installing license plate readers at certain intersections in town. Some of the patrol cars also have mobile versions of these plate readers. The idea is automate checks to see if vehicles on the streets have valid insurance. People driving with no insurance is a giant problem in Oklahoma. The plate readers have also had the side effect of helping solve a couple homicides in the short time they've been in service. Those license plate readers in conjunction with surveillance cameras installed at homes and businesses can be a pretty powerful "big brother is watching" tool. Of course we have the big brother thing in our smart phones.

[Max Rockatansky]

It isn't exactly "big brother" when people voluntarily put everything about their life on social media. 

[roadman65]

We didn't have cyber crimes in the seventies.  No one back then, even if they know your ss #, couldn't walk into a bank to withdraw money from your account as signature check was used to verify it's you.

Sure we had physical crimes to worry about, so in retrospect things changed but crime really hasn't. Just changed methods.

[Rothman]

I'd like to think that lower homicide rates since the 1980s are indeed a major change...

[vdeane]

It isn't exactly "big brother" when people voluntarily put everything about their life on social media. 

I mean, the government has stood by while big tech created the big data leviathan; I heard that we even had legislation moving through Congress to ban all the tracking and data selling that pervades the internet now, but then 9/11 happened and user privacy was suddenly no longer of interest.

[Max Rockatansky]

It isn't exactly "big brother" when people voluntarily put everything about their life on social media. 

I mean, the government has stood by while big tech created the big data leviathan; I heard that we even had legislation moving through Congress to ban all the tracking and data selling that pervades the internet now, but then 9/11 happened and user privacy was suddenly no longer of interest.

Right and for the most part the average normal person is okay with feeding said data leviathan.  Things didn't exactly play out how Orwell thought they would.  I suppose someone could just opt out to modern tech if they really wanted to.  Problem is that one has be a pretty hardened (and likely dedicated) social outcast for that to be viable. 

[Bobby5280]

Even if someone completely avoided using social media he could still end up having his movements and activities tracked pretty easily. Having a mobile phone is a big one. Even if location services are turned off in the phone a person's location history can still be approximated based on tower communications.

I mentioned the license tag readers earlier. I think we'll see far more of them (and other RFID tag readers) in the future. Getting tough on crime will have these tag/plate readers instantly looking for expired insurance, outstanding warrants and other stuff. Surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology will continue to improve.

Those tools can be alright if they're only used to improve public safety and catch criminals. But the same surveillance tools can be weaponized by any government dipping its toes into autocratic behavior.

[Max Rockatansky]

Do you consider having a cell phone a necessity or luxury?  I view it as the latter myself.  I know you guys complain about a lot of things being fully phone app enabled but it isn't a hassle I've encountered myself. 

I don't know, nowadays I kind of roll my eyes whenever I see someone making claims about impending dystopia. 

[bandit957]

Do you consider having a cell phone a necessity or luxury? 

It's basically a necessity these days. But I'm very thrifty about it, like I am with most things.

[Max Rockatansky]

Do you consider having a cell phone a necessity or luxury? 

It's basically a necessity these days. But I'm very thrifty about it, like I am with most things.

It isn't though.  There isn't a single thing in my day to day life that couldn't be done a more analog way. 

[hbelkins]

After scrolling through three new pages of this topic, I'm convinced that it got derailed when someone took the reference to "Star Wars" literally and started discussing the movie and the accompanying music.

[Max Rockatansky]

This has basically turned into the 1970s thread.

[bandit957]

This has basically turned into the 1970s thread.

That's because the 1970s were just so cool.

[formulanone]

In terms of violent crime, the US hit a historic peak in 1980. Nationally the homicide rate was over 10 murders per 100,000 people. The rate hovers around half that level or less today. The public wouldn't know this with the way the media reports "news." All the emotional amplification to instill fear and anger would have viewers thinking crime is worse than ever.

Telling the public they are much more likely to die from poor dietary habits and vehicular accidents seems to annoy news outlets' sponsors.

I don't know, nowadays I kind of roll my eyes whenever I see someone making claims about impending dystopia.

It's more of a soft landing for most folks than a hard one; we give up more information each year, we give up a little more privacy each year, we allow for businesses to perpetually advertise to us, allow think tanks to let us determine how happy we are, we're okay with poorer quality goods and services and greater monopolization, we allow those in power to continue to decide what's best for themselves and their wealthy donors and are demonized for trying to cut them off. And there's so many voices telling us we dare not question anyone's motives to systematically and surgically remove our collective wallets from our collective backside pockets, lest it be considered un-American.

But we can easily forgive and forget all of these things because we remind ourselves how easy many of us have it; lower crime, labor is easier to perform, we don't tax our brains as much as before, we can get some level of healthcare, there's access to mental health (and it's talked about more freely / less stigmatized than before), we don't waste as much time repairing when we can just buy new stuff. And even if the average schmo doesn't understand nor care about any of these things, we can forget it even more easily since we have greater access for entertaining ourselves, finding quick pleasures, and feeding our desires quicker and easier than ever before. And maybe that tips the scales for a lot of folks in the overall scheme of things.

I guess it depends on where you find yourself in the present tense, and how you rate your own personal success, as to whether you think all of these things are helping you or hindering you. Nobody should be expected to solve all of life's problems for everyone and everyone without having a massive breakdown.

[Bobby5280]

The news outlets also don't like mentioning the statistic a person is 3 times more likely to kill himself than be killed by someone else.

[Max Rockatansky]

In terms of violent crime, the US hit a historic peak in 1980. Nationally the homicide rate was over 10 murders per 100,000 people. The rate hovers around half that level or less today. The public wouldn't know this with the way the media reports "news." All the emotional amplification to instill fear and anger would have viewers thinking crime is worse than ever.

Telling the public they are much more likely to die from poor dietary habits and vehicular accidents seems to annoy news outlets' sponsors.

I don't know, nowadays I kind of roll my eyes whenever I see someone making claims about impending dystopia.

It's more of a soft landing for most folks than a hard one; we give up more information each year, we give up a little more privacy each year, we allow for businesses to perpetually advertise to us, allow think tanks to let us determine how happy we are,  we're okay with poorer quality goods and services, we get less for our paycheck, we allow those in power to continue to decide what's best for themselves and their wealthy donors and are demonized for trying to cut them off. And there's so many voices telling us we dare not question anyone's motives to systematically and surgically our collective wallets from our collective backside pockets, lest it be considered un-American.

But we can easily forgive and forget all of these things because we remind ourselves how easy many of us have it; lower crime, labor is easier to perform, we don't tax our brains as much as before, we can get some level of healthcare, there's access to mental health (and it's talked about more freely / less stigmatized than before), we don't waste as much time repairing when we can just buy new stuff. And we forget it even more easily since we have greater access for entertaining ourselves, finding quick pleasures, and feeding our desires quicker and easier than ever before.

I guess it depends on where you find yourself in the present tense, and how you rate your own personal success, as to whether you think all of these things are helping you or hindering you. Nobody should be expected to solve all of life's problems for everyone and everyone without having a massive breakdown.

For me two things happened as I got older.  For one I really began to care way less about what takes place in the world outside of my immediate circle of family/fiends.  At the same time I began to care much less about how I presented myself to the external world. 

I guess in that sense it makes sense why I'm not particularly paranoid about what I put online.  No matter what I do it isn't likely going to generate much interest from malefactors.

[Brandon]

Bringing this back to roads for a moment...

The Carter Administration was responsible for those 85 mph speedometers you saw in cars made after 9/1/1979 and 1982 with 55 mph prominently marked on them (FMVSS 127).  He also made federal standards on enforcing the 55 mph speed limit on the states that had previously been approved by Nixon and Ford.

[vdeane]

It isn't exactly "big brother" when people voluntarily put everything about their life on social media. 

I mean, the government has stood by while big tech created the big data leviathan; I heard that we even had legislation moving through Congress to ban all the tracking and data selling that pervades the internet now, but then 9/11 happened and user privacy was suddenly no longer of interest.

Right and for the most part the average normal person is okay with feeding said data leviathan.  Things didn't exactly play out how Orwell thought they would.  I suppose someone could just opt out to modern tech if they really wanted to.  Problem is that one has be a pretty hardened (and likely dedicated) social outcast for that to be viable. 

I suspect most people don't really know (or pay attention to) how far information can spread and what can be discovered when it's aggregated together.  They figure "I don't care if X knows Y or if A knows B", not realizing that someone who knows both Y and B can infer Z.

The post-9/11 "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide" conditioning probably doesn't help either.

[Max Rockatansky]

It isn't exactly "big brother" when people voluntarily put everything about their life on social media. 

I mean, the government has stood by while big tech created the big data leviathan; I heard that we even had legislation moving through Congress to ban all the tracking and data selling that pervades the internet now, but then 9/11 happened and user privacy was suddenly no longer of interest.

Right and for the most part the average normal person is okay with feeding said data leviathan.  Things didn't exactly play out how Orwell thought they would.  I suppose someone could just opt out to modern tech if they really wanted to.  Problem is that one has be a pretty hardened (and likely dedicated) social outcast for that to be viable. 

I suspect most people don't really know (or pay attention to) how far information can spread and what can be discovered when it's aggregated together.  They figure "I don't care if X knows Y or if A knows B", not realizing that someone who knows both Y and B can infer Z.

I guess that I don't really care what people think they know or infer about me.

[Scott5114]

I mentioned the license tag readers earlier. I think we'll see far more of them (and other RFID tag readers) in the future. Getting tough on crime will have these tag/plate readers instantly looking for expired insurance, outstanding warrants and other stuff. Surveillance cameras and facial recognition technology will continue to improve.

In Las Vegas people just drive around with no plates...

[SEWIGuy]

It isn't exactly "big brother" when people voluntarily put everything about their life on social media. 

I mean, the government has stood by while big tech created the big data leviathan; I heard that we even had legislation moving through Congress to ban all the tracking and data selling that pervades the internet now, but then 9/11 happened and user privacy was suddenly no longer of interest.

Right and for the most part the average normal person is okay with feeding said data leviathan.  Things didn't exactly play out how Orwell thought they would.  I suppose someone could just opt out to modern tech if they really wanted to.  Problem is that one has be a pretty hardened (and likely dedicated) social outcast for that to be viable. 

I suspect most people don't really know (or pay attention to) how far information can spread and what can be discovered when it's aggregated together.  They figure "I don't care if X knows Y or if A knows B", not realizing that someone who knows both Y and B can infer Z.

I guess that I don't really care what people think they know or infer about me.

Right. And if the cops want to scan my license to make sure I have insurance, go right ahead.

[Max Rockatansky]

It isn't exactly "big brother" when people voluntarily put everything about their life on social media. 

I mean, the government has stood by while big tech created the big data leviathan; I heard that we even had legislation moving through Congress to ban all the tracking and data selling that pervades the internet now, but then 9/11 happened and user privacy was suddenly no longer of interest.

Right and for the most part the average normal person is okay with feeding said data leviathan.  Things didn't exactly play out how Orwell thought they would.  I suppose someone could just opt out to modern tech if they really wanted to.  Problem is that one has be a pretty hardened (and likely dedicated) social outcast for that to be viable. 

I suspect most people don't really know (or pay attention to) how far information can spread and what can be discovered when it's aggregated together.  They figure "I don't care if X knows Y or if A knows B", not realizing that someone who knows both Y and B can infer Z.

I guess that I don't really care what people think they know or infer about me.

Right. And if the cops want to scan my license to make sure I have insurance, go right ahead.

And to that end I've been pulled numerous times.  There has been a handful of "what are you doing here?" type stops included in that mix.  The last time it happened was in Texas circa 2016.  I was moving from Florida to California and apparently was suspicious being on I-20 versus I-10.  I just told the officer that I what I was doing (I was seeing Carlsbad Caverns and heading to Las Cruces for the night) and that was the end of it.