Comment by kklisura
2 days ago
And let me share this reply by Garry Tan, CEO of YC, after someone made a comment that Flock might be _pretty dystopian_ [1][2]:
> You're thinking Chinese surveillance
> US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims
> You're thinking Chinese surveillance
the big irony, of course, is that i'm much more comfortable with China surveilling me than the US, since the latter can throw me in jail, seize my assets, and ruin my family's life, while the former cannot.
The CCP can hijack your accounts and absolutely do all of those things, using your own government.
could you provide an example of that happening?
why would the former bother, when all they have to do is take you to one of their secret police stations in the US and disappear you?
Still a much lower risk than Kristi Noem deciding you represent a national security risk because you tweeted “Fk ICE”
America probably invented extraordinary rendition.
s/is take you to/is convince you to willing go to/g
The US government is a democracy and can be replaced should it exceed people’s limits. The CCP… uh, not so much.
I’m not trying to say the US government is faultless but it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.
> it amazes me how often I see this kind of anti-democratic institition sentiment.
leeoniya didn't say anything about democracy. The practical reality is that regardless of what forms of government are involved, whichever government has the ability to arrest you is the government which is the greatest threat in your day-to-day life.
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> The US government is a democracy and can be replaced
I'm not sure this is as axiomatic as many think, in 2025
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It’s not anti-democratic, it’s simply a matter of exposure. China can WANT to do whatever they want to me, but I have no assets in China, no trade in China, and neither me nor anyone close to me will ever go to China. So it simply matters a lot less what China has on me than the country where I have friends, loved ones, financial assets, property, and frequently visit.
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It's not anti-democratic, it's just pragmatic.
Yes the US is a democracy, but a lot of our systems suck ass and are also close in proximity. You DO NOT want to get into legal trouble in the US. Our justice system is beyond fucked. If there's one way to permanently ruin your life in the US, it's getting into legal trouble. You're better off smoking crack cocaine, that's probably healthier for your livelihood.
I don't know about China's legal system, but even assuming it's more fucked, it's all the way over there. Not here.
The main trouble with Flock and companies like them is that they attach to our broken systems like a tumor. If the system fails, which it often does, these accelerate it and make it worse. If you get falsely accused of something or piss off the wrong PD, this shit can ruin your life. Permanently and expeditiously.
Even if you are the most Moral Orel you should be skeptical of these crime reduction claims. They don't just beat down crime, they beat down regular people, too. And if you ask them, they don't know the difference.
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A democratic government that tramples all democratic processes ceases to be democratic.
> The US government is a democracy and can be replaced should it exceed people’s limits
In theory, yes, but why do you think that it would be possible to forcefully replace in practice?
Maybe it isn't the US government we need to worry about. What's stopping Flock from compiling and selling personal dossiers on every citizen like all the other big tech companies? They're just a private company so nothing to worry about, right?
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In the book "Blockchain Chicken Farm", American Journalist Xiaowei Wang went to her parents' home country of China to interview various parts of the economy to get an understanding of how it works from an outsider's perspective.
In one part of the book, she goes to speak to a police chief on the topic of surveillance. She discusses with the officer the challenges of tracking migrant workers, and how in China there isn't a single ID number similar to an SSN in the states.
Towards the end of the interview, the officer, Xiaoli comments that much of the modernizing of the policing work is moving to be more "United States-Like".
Incredible anecdote, I purchased the book. In this way, the relationship between America and China is exactly like the relationship between America and the USSR was -- each trying to become the other precisely as they try to consume each other.
Another sign of Chinese ideological dominance is that nobody can conceive of a future that does not mimic China's solutions to social problems. Trump says frequently that he's jealous of Xi's position as dictator, tech firms envy 996 culture, public safety advocates are pivoting to restricting internet speech and constant surveillance.. etc. etc.
Well a lot of people can conceive of a cultural hegemony that is more pleasant to live under. It’s more that Y Combinator wants to be exposed to the returns of the Palantirs, Andurils and Clearviews out there.
Possibly. I think, at the very least, Garry Tan is a true believer. He's not proposing putting this in someone else's neighborhood or city, he wants it in SF, SJ, Berkeley, etc.
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jesus fuck the gloves really came off in the past few years. noone even cares to hide it anymore.
i could almost admire the transparency of these people, the way they're apparently okay accepting collateral damage of their schemes, up to the complete destruction of the fabric of society... as long as there's money to be made.
The gloves were always off, it's the masks that came down. Now they are ready to punch.
You don't understand, when software has support for Chinese characters it is automatically 150% more dystopian.
American venture capitalism ironically creates all of the same authoritarian issues as Chinese state capitalism, but without any of the lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty part.
Indeed, American capitalism is designed to lift the already-rich out of mere "rich" into "obscenely rich."
This isn't a surprising sentiment when you consider America is a country that protects billionaire pedophiles who partied on Epstein Island while China puts corrupt billionaires in the slammer, or even executes them. America is a country that exists to keep him rich at the expense of the poor while China does the reverse - its the greatest threat to his continued class dominance over the proles.
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Why did my low-crime red town in a red state buy into flock?
If the police protected and served as they're asked they could get some funding. Not for tanks and spy cameras, but for trained officers.
The police are usually pretty good at their jobs, within reason. It's almost always going to take them several minutes at least to respond to your call, but when they do manage to arrive on the scene they are usually pretty good about eliminating the threat and rendering first aid/etc. There are some infamous cases where this severely broke down, instances of cops not entering an active crime scene and instead seeing fit to stop the public from taking matters into their own hands, but these instances are so notorious because of how unusual and counter to American values they were.
It's usually prosecutors and judges who drop the ball.
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I've never heard about this Tan guy before, I don't keep up with politics/corporatism anymore, but is that possibly sarcasm? It sure feels like it to me. But again, I don't know this person, but if I came across that by itself I feel like it's pretty clearly sarcastic, as Twitter tends to be. Maybe I'm just tone deaf myself to how tone deaf others could be?
He probably being sincere. If you're logged in (or use something like xcancel), you can see the full thread, where he starts off with
> Flock Safety currently solves 700,000 reported cases of crime per year, which is about 10% of reported crime nationwide
> And they're just getting started
His profile also says:
>President & CEO @ycombinator —Founder @Initialized—designer/engineer who helps founders—SF Dem accelerating the boom loop—haters not allowed in my sauna
Gary has some unhinged politics with regards to "public safety" even excepting the Flock boosterism.
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He’s being sincerely greedy and nihilistic, if that’s what you mean by “sincere”
It's really interesting the different cultures "YCombinator the startup incubator" and "Ycombinator/HN the internet forum has". A comment being so oblivious about surveillance would probably be flagged here, at least heavily downvoted, while this guy is actively the president and CEO of Ycombinator today?
pg, what happened? Ycombinator used to be a beacon of sense in a sea of uselessness, but now uselessness is running Ycombinator?
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This is the CEO of the startup incubator handwaving away concerns in the name of money.
It is not sarcastic.
Generally speaking, today, surveillance capitalism is the foundation of both our political culture, economy, and the tech industry that backs them.
In polite circles we call surveillance "user telemetry" and the like. It's not just Palantir and FLock; where does Meta's money come from...? Google's for that matter...?
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