Comment by monero-xmr
2 days ago
I would prefer they require face scanning vs. locking everything up. The police in my city don’t arrest people for shoplifting, or a range of petty crimes for that matter. If you don’t like face scanning no one makes you shop there.
When crime is unpunished and the police won’t do anything and the politicians don’t care, then businesses either have to adapt with new models or close
Police in my city are quite happy to lock people up for shoplifting. Random stores still lock up the majority of their inventory. I’m not sure how much that’s correlated.
Arresting literally anyone except the repeat offenders that make the media would be a good start. It’s a joke right now
Kind of a strange stance from someone with the name "monero-xmr". If scanning everyone's face for the purpose of going after petty crimes is justified, why shouldn't it be illegal to use monero for the purpose of going after other crimes?
Your [popular on HN] anti-crypto crusade doesn't make this a logical comparison.
XMR is not illegal to use or own, shoplifting is.
I'm actually not anti-crypto (anti-cryptobro, maybe). I'm anti-surveillance-state and I find it very strange that someone wouldn't recognize the obvious similar argument that monero would be enabling unpunished crime.
Something being illegal is not a blank check for unchecked surveillance.
These stores should just convert to a 19th century retail model and not allow customers to enter the stockroom.
You may also see stores revert to the 20th century model of having the mafia serve as private security. One reason they were so successful in some areas is that they were less corrupt and more responsive than the police.
The bad thing about mafia enforcement is you don’t get civil rights. Oh, and if the mob boss wants a favor then you’re going to have to oblige, even if it puts you at risk.
If police and DAs don’t take their jobs seriously, this is what they are inviting back into society.
That model also makes online shopping and delivery services easier to implement. I guess the issue is how labor intensive it is though. Instead of replacing cashiers with self checkout stands it goes in the opposite direction.
So Costco?
No, Costco is pretty much just a normal store with warehouse vibes. They mean where you hand a shopping list to an employee at the front and they get everything for you.
See that’s exactly the type of thing I want to avoid. I would like to get back to a normal world where stealing is wrong and police arrest thieves
Or they could continue taking a small % of loss, remain wildly profitable and not abuse people.
Make the rest of us pay 7% more so thieves can loot businesses and avoid getting a real job? How about no
This is a false either/or.
It has been proven and reproven that these claims of crime requiring store shutdowns were improperly put forward, without research, by a lobby. So much so that it was covered in mainstream media.
December 2023: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-12-14/column-ret...
Your argument - esp the 'blue cities' bit given that the majority of metro(polis) cities in the US could be called blue (minus Miami, Houston, Dallas)- feels slanted.
OP your post was "if you dont like face scanning don't shop there" because shops need face scanning to stop crime.
However your next comment was that cops don't help. Here's the thing. They have a pretty terrible track record of help in any city including red ones. Have you called after having a fender bender on the highway in any state? Near a city, the answer is "no public property or third party damaged? exchange info yourself". Despite this they have been well-funded in the last few election cycles and this does not depend on the party elected.
How about when an iphone gets stolen, or all the people using airtags to track their luggage? The private sector also does a so/so to shit job of helping you. Apple will let you find your phone, but its up to you to go get it, or wipe and restart.
Tracking and storing all of my info and my face does not make the cops more effective at their jobs or prioritize this shop owner you know. Tracking and storing my info and face, doesn't help the shop keeper.
It does however, seem that all this tracking of my info results in my information getting leaked time and time and again. Meaning that I've gone for a shop and somehow the probability of something being stolen from me goes up
I’m friends with the manager of my neighborhood convenience store and he is extremely angry that he has shoplifting caught on tape, trespassed people, begged and pleaded with the police but they won’t do anything. I’m not sure if you actually know anyone operating a retail store but it’s pretty grim in the blue cities
The police rarely have ever been super responsive on shoplifting and basic trespass. I worked at a big box electronics store in the 90s, and we got looted when management did stupid shit like put hard drives on a retail shelf to save labor. The police rarely cared with some specific exception.
These cases are both minor and hard to prosecute.
The difference isn’t enforcement, it’s demand. The retail model as it stands today wasn’t designed for a world where there is a global market for everything. 95% people are honest, and most dishonest people are disorganized and easy to deter.
If you were to raid a drug store in 1986, your ability to unload stolen toothpaste and hair spray was pretty limited - maybe some mafias had a network of bodegas or independent stores.
Today, you have a major corporation that prides itself at having the “world‘s largest selection”. It’s also the worlds largest fence — Amazon.
You really need to figure out how to get the police to do their job.
The symptoms you're describing don't seem to match the proposed treatment.
Police: "You've caught them red-handed on camera, but we're very busy and we don't care. Or perhaps this is a place where we're deliberately doing-nothing as a revenge or pressure-tactic against local politicians."
Shopkeeper: "Ah, but this time I have the camera-footage and fancy biometrics of everyone in the store!"
Police: "Oh, well why didn't you say so? That completely changes things, we're always willing to help out a fellow biometrics fan."
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...Do you, perhaps, detect some sort of a difference between your neighborhood convenience store, and Wal-Mart?
Perhaps some differences in level of power?
Perhaps some differences in the degree to which police are willing to bend over backward for them, vs blowing them off?