The Pedo Bear strike

I saw some Utube stuff on the Japanese disaster. People sought different views just to be different. So say guy A is filming the mall washing away, guy B says, ok now what isn't being covered. Ah the Honda dealership is afloat.

Ed's camera persons will do the same, who needs or wants 37 videos of the fountain.

Well but it is true that in London they do have lots of freaking cameras

Maybe the other towns aren't that big you know ... I can tell you that as a Dime British 

It's mostly just that London is the only place a lot of foreign media (and even our own) really pays attention to. Hell the MPs are just as bad at times.
Probably got more cameras per square mile than a fucking camera factory.

Dry spell here and so I'm too busy to do more than lurk, but Holt, "penis replacements"?

Paging Dr. Freud. Dr Freud to Mr. Holt's room, stat.

Oh hey Freud. Well it's those dam Americans. The way they keep obsessing over their guns and fondling them is just getting perverse.

I know it. It is more common around Manchester (they just started putting up those Trafficmaster traffic cameras on all the A-roads around here too) but I've seen plenty of cameras in York last few times I was there. They're usually quite high up and look fairly innocuous most of the time but there are more around than you may realise. Every single bus has at least one camera on it, all trains have them now, the railway station has loads of them, most traffic junctions have at least one somewhere. Yes, even in York, they're just more obvious around my way because they paint them a more visible colour.

Yes buses and trains are private property. A private company can put a camera in its private property.
You'd be wise to note that many of the "high up and out of the way" cameras are private property observing private property.
The number of "big bad evil government cameras" is so minuscule it's not worth bothering with. You've got traffic cameras which aren't exactly about oppressing the masses just making you not decide to drive like a lunatic and kill some people.

Three things

1) You're assuming that the phrase "surveillance society" necessarily requires all the camera to be run by the government. This is not true. It simply means that there are cameras everywhere filming everything, giving people a false sense of security and producing a population a little more compliant with the need to be watched all the time.

2) Trafficmaster cameras are not speed cameras, they are set up to monitor general traffic flow, are usually seen on motorways but have started to appear on A roads, and are alleged to "forget" your numberplate once they've recorded it. Even so, I don't like being "made" to decide how to drive. The assumption that I will drive like a lunatic because there aren't speed and junction cameras around is insulting, degrading and a very good example of the way government inevitably becomes oppressive and proscriptive.

3) When referring to cameras "up high" I wasn't talking about those privately owned ones attached to buildings, but government-owned cameras placed on very tall poles for local police "enforcement". Most people don't spot them because they tend to look like lampposts or something else innocuous. And many of those cameras you assume to be private are not private at all.

There are rather more state-owned cameras around than you seem to realise but, even if there weren't, the prevalence of privately owned cameras, often pointing at public spaces, is a symptom of a much larger belief that the world an be saved if only someone is watching everyone else.

I know it. It is more common around Manchester (they just started putting up those Trafficmaster traffic cameras on all the A-roads around here too) but I've seen plenty of cameras in York last few times I was there. They're usually quite high up and look fairly innocuous most of the time but there are more around than you may realise. Every single bus has at least one camera on it, all trains have them now, the railway station has loads of them, most traffic junctions have at least one somewhere. Yes, even in York, they're just more obvious around my way because they paint them a more visible colour.

Yes buses and trains are private property. A private company can put a camera in its private property.
You'd be wise to note that many of the "high up and out of the way" cameras are private property observing private property.
The number of "big bad evil government cameras" is so minuscule it's not worth bothering with. You've got traffic cameras which aren't exactly about oppressing the masses just making you not decide to drive like a lunatic and kill some people.

Three things

1) You're assuming that the phrase "surveillance society" necessarily requires all the camera to be run by the government. This is not true. It simply means that there are cameras everywhere filming everything, giving people a false sense of security and producing a population a little more compliant with the need to be watched all the time.

2) Trafficmaster cameras are not speed cameras, they are set up to monitor general traffic flow, are usually seen on motorways but have started to appear on A roads, and are alleged to "forget" your numberplate once they've recorded it. Even so, I don't like being "made" to decide how to drive. The assumption that I will drive like a lunatic because there aren't speed and junction cameras around is insulting, degrading and a very good example of the way government inevitably becomes oppressive and proscriptive.

3) When referring to cameras "up high" I wasn't talking about those privately owned ones attached to buildings, but government-owned cameras placed on very tall poles for local police "enforcement". Most people don't spot them because they tend to look like lampposts or something else innocuous. And many of those cameras you assume to be private are not private at all.

There are rather more state-owned cameras around than you seem to realise but, even if there weren't, the prevalence of privately owned cameras, often pointing at public spaces, is a symptom of a much larger belief that the world an be saved if only someone is watching everyone else.

I don't much mind having a lot of cameras around provided I get to look at the results. Like, there's a lot of traffic congestion where I live, particularly from around 6 to 9 AM and 4 to 8 PM. It would be convenient if I could see how bad it is when I'm planning my route. My wife hates being in crowds and it would be convenient if we could check how long the grocery store lines are, or the restaurant wait, before we got there. Etc.

And I wouldn't at all mind if every automobile had traffic cameras to watch all the cars nearby. So when you see somebody doing something that looks unsafe, you could send them your video to show them how it looked from where you were. In theory police are supposed to improve traffic safety, but it seems like most of what they do is arrest people for speeding or running red lights, or if they see somebody who looks like his reflexes are impaired they stop him and test him for alcohol. They want arrests that are clearly not their fault, that result in big fines. Reckless driving is a gray area that leads to lots of aggravation. Far better if people got actual feedback about their driving behavior.

Privacy in itself doesn't have to be such a big issue. But hey, let's make those video recordings public, for everybody to use as they want. Fair's fair.

I don't much mind having a lot of cameras around provided I get to look at the results. Like, there's a lot of traffic congestion where I live, particularly from around 6 to 9 AM and 4 to 8 PM. It would be convenient if I could see how bad it is when I'm planning my route. My wife hates being in crowds and it would be convenient if we could check how long the grocery store lines are, or the restaurant wait, before we got there. Etc.

Feeds from many of the UK's traffic-monitoring cameras are publically accessible over the internet - certainly all the ones on the motorway network - and I have used them for route-planning.

Cameras are creepy.

I think cameras are creepy too.  I wonder if hats with veils, especially veils with dotted bits in, will come back into fashion.  I wonder if the Japanese fondness for face masks is only about hygiene.

Let's see.... Rhonda expatiates at great length in a thoroughly monitored public place about how her thugs have put the arm upon "Kate, a cute freckly little 'pre-majority belter woman' - I think she's twelve" and she doesn't expect her boasting to show up all to hellangone over the Tanglenet?

Hm.  The U.W. bureaucrats seem to have "augmented" everything about Rhonda except her common sense.

Let's see.... Rhonda expatiates at great length in a thoroughly monitored public place about how her thugs have put the arm upon "Kate, a cute freckly little 'pre-majority belter woman' - I think she's twelve" and she doesn't expect her boasting to show up all to hellangone over the Tanglenet?

Hm.  The U.W. bureaucrats seem to have "augmented" everything about Rhonda except her common sense.

I'm confused by this too. However, Sandy explained that although the Tanglenet can't be controlled itself, the public on Earth doesn't have legal direct access to the Tanglenet.

Hence, if the UW doesn't care what Mars thinks, but only needs a provocation for the Earth captive audience... well, they could almost have filmed their provocation in a studio. Still, I suppose it's useful to have some element of truth in one's lies.

I think cameras are creepy too.  I wonder if hats with veils, especially veils with dotted bits in, will come back into fashion.  I wonder if the Japanese fondness for face masks is only about hygiene.

Well the USA they'd run around shooting cameras. Britain generally won't give a fuck although in some areas the cameras will no doubt be stolen.

Hence, if the UW doesn't care what Mars thinks, but only needs a provocation for the Earth captive audience... well, they could almost have filmed their provocation in a studio. Still, I suppose it's useful to have some element of truth in one's lies.

I was think that, too, but Sandy says that there are illegal receivers on Earth that can get the message out, something like Radio Free Europe.

I was think that, too, but Sandy says that there are illegal receivers on Earth that can get the message out, something like Radio Free Europe.

True, but if people are afraid to admit in public that they've obtained information from illegal sources, it can be kept out of public debate.

... if people are afraid to admit in public that they've obtained information from illegal sources, it can be kept out of public debate.

Think Wikileaks and internet conspiracy theorists. Information wants to be free.

So the plot advance by Rhonda getting the inner Pedo Bear of her soldier to jump over a 12 years old and almost get shot ?

UW being pedophiles won't make bad PR for them

True,

As I understand it, the UW is looking to take over the belt without breaking it (in their opinion) so as they can tax the heck out if it in order to delay their financial meltdown.  Towards this end, they are looking to manufacture an incident that they can use for propaganda purposes back home.  My question is, why manufacture something outrageous to the average UW prole at all?  Just find some aspect of an ancap society that the average UW prole would find outrageous, and work from there.   In keeping with the 'Pedo Strike' subject line, I would suggest just finding the Cerean pedophile subculture*, and going from there along the "its not ilegal on Ceres" line, and then toward the "we have to intervene to protect the children" route.


*Given that we have people here and now who practice pedophila despite laws against it and severe punishments if they are caught, I would find it difficult to believe that Ceres has none.    And before anyone says that the parents of the children involved would be aggreived by a pedophile's attentions towards their offspring, and thus seek mediation on their child's behalf, keep in mind that :

1) There is probably good money to be made renting one's child out to a pedophile, and not all people are scrupulous or moral about how they make money.
2) The parents themselves may be pedophiles, either directly abusing their own children, or as part of a subculture that swaps its children among themselves.  If the parent/guardian of a pre-emancipated (chattel) child deems that there is no harm, and the child is unwilling/unable to declare its emancipation, then what standing would another Cerean have for intervening?

... if people are afraid to admit in public that they've obtained information from illegal sources, it can be kept out of public debate.

Think Wikileaks and internet conspiracy theorists. Information wants to be free.

And lunatics are convinced that the royal family are evil space lizards who drink human blood.