ava's blog

rationalizations about ring, flock, etc.

I have talked to multiple people using Ring cameras and similar surveillance tech at or around their home over the last few years, usually from the US.

The reasons are mostly the same:

Most of them have only started using these cameras after 2020, which is pretty odd if these are really the true reasons.

Cameras and surveillance systems have been around since the 1940s, and have only become more and more affordable and easy to set up, even pre-Ring. Crime rates have existed before, as did the need to prove things to police or an insurance. Yet, the purchase of a private surveillance camera only came up in the recent years for them. Why?

It really is the perfect proof that fear-based marketing works.

Social media and the 24/7 global news cycle have us all hyper-aware of terrible events everywhere, and have blown things completely out of proportion. The constant recurring reminders that something bad happened just near you that you would have otherwise not known about is skyrocketing your anxiety. You could be next! Ragebait and other recorded rude behavior popping into your feed colors your perception of strangers and humanity as a whole. Everyone is out to get you! People have lost their minds, and now you have to protect yourself!

It gets so bad that anyone walking on the street, being near your home, delivering your package is a suspect, a threat, before they are a human. They first have to prove they have nothing to hide, or prove they are doing their job correctly, all pressured by the presence of a camera (and the threat of this being shared with police or uploaded online and going viral), before they are seen as someone with rights. And maybe they even serve as content opportunity - fair game of course, as your camera yelled out that they're being recorded and by not immediately running away (as they have a job to do or wanna visit you), they consent, right?

It's no wonder all that intensified during and after the lockdowns for Covid where everyone was extremely online, and that companies have found ways to capitalize on this fear. Because that's what it is: You fell for the marketing that promised to calm your worst fears and anxiety with more tech, and pretends it gives you some sort of control or a magic device that makes it all turn out okay. That's why you suddenly only need it now, after being able to live without it just fine.

Overtly or covertly, the marketing tries to tell you:

You can prevent all bad things from happening. You will spot bad things happening in time before any damage is done, or we will send a notification. Burglars and package stealers will be deterred. Due to the video footage, police will actually do something, and even catch the perp! You can find missing people and pets. Insurance will stop fighting with you! Your spouse will be too scared from bringing someone home while you're at work, and the kids will not do something forbidden while you're out of the house, and the dogs will not tear anything up because you can just yell at them to stop via a camera. You'll see if someone in the home has a medical emergency.

But this is legit insane! You have smoke detectors and gas detectors for this. Criminals are not deterred by cameras. People everywhere are still getting their insurance claims approved and their lost package refunded. Police solved case rates are still embarrassingly low, despite almost all stores, and many streets claimed to be crime spots, being surveilled for a decade or longer now.

People living with you or being in your home deserve privacy instead of suffering from your extreme insecurities. They deserve to not being judged all the time, especially children and teens. Knowing you are constantly recorded and watched and that it all can be played back or checked later (and possibly posted online) is completely damaging to any sort of character development and sense of safety, especially around trying new things and making mistakes. The chilling effects this has cannot be overstated, even for your guests! Your desire to see your pets all the time or be prepared for a possible unconscious person at home overrides none of this, and none of the risks like

and more!

Life is unpredictable, and these things just appeal to a very scared part of us that we need to deal with differently than "arming up". Your trauma about your previous break-in is understandable, yet needs more substantial treatment than this clown show of a bandaid solution. I think any Ring user deep down is actually aware it is all outside of their control, and that this doesn't even make a dent and is just a farce, but it makes them feel better, and that's all that counts. It's a completely accepted delusion that the rest of us are expected to dance around and tolerate, which is ridiculous and I won't do.

Realistically, you all know that there are no reliable stats, no actual proof any of this works, or does something to prevent anything, or help someone. You also know that the wholesome feel-good reasons are nothing compared to the risks. The chances are good that crime rates in your area have lowered since before you even had a camera, and it's not due to it existing. It's hard to prove something didn't happen, of course, but we have had store and street surveillance for quite a while now and it has not deterred crime from taking place. It has not even led to a meaningful amount of recorded crime actually being resolved. It's not in the police's interest to solve your petty bike theft because they are here to secure the property of wealthy people, not yours.

Crime is best fought with resources like housing, food, money and education, but that costs more than a few thousand cameras and cannot be used for fascism, racial profiling, non-consensual recording and spying and doesn't supply the prison industrial complex, so of course it is unpopular with governments.

What every Ring user is saying is basically: "Fuck society, fuck the political environment this is happening in, fuck you; my feelings matter more than the effect this has on society as a whole. I want the normalization of constant surveillance because I crave control and safety! I love the law and order appeal of literally any piece of media depicting fascism!"

It also hinges on this extremely individualist mindset I see emerge more and more where everyone is just fending for themselves, securing their own resources, and going "I got mine, fuck you." or "Doesn't affect me negatively, so why should I care?".

Everyone is seeking to buy their own McMansion, the further away from others and the higher the fence, the better. They're relying as little as possible on others, paying some stranger for things that usually a family member, friend or neighbor would do for free and have them drop it off without contact on the doorstep. They only interact with others online, and build up an impenetrable fortress together with surveillance everywhere, as if a horde of peasants could come and take away everything you have hoarded and worked for. And in the US of course, with a variety of guns in the home, and a ChildKillerTank5000 SUV in front, because the safety and comfort of the driver is top priority and your goal with driving is to win and survive, not to drive defensively and respectfully in a reasonably sized car.

It's ridiculous to see from the outside, because you're building this insular allegedly hypersecure prison for yourself in which you are willing to hand over any piece of possible evidence as a loyal neighborhood spy and as proof you're a good behaved citizen, just because media tells you your biggest threat is other people; yet the biggest threat of our lifetime is climate change, and there is nothing that protects you from it in your fortress, and no one you can bootlick enough to be safe from it.

Nothing you can do about the rising heat, dying wildlife, ruined crops, water scarcity, the upcoming climate refugee movements, the floodings, tornadoes and earth quakes that intensify, and so on. You think you can separate yourself from society and from your own choices and its effects and secure yourself, and it's not working. It will never work. And you are also capable of having blood on your hands.

But in the meantime, you can make unethical companies like Ring and Flock a little richer, and you can help police and ICE and alike organizations do their kidnapping, killing, discrimination and intimidation more effectively, you can help train AI on people just existing in public, and you can help normalize being recorded everywhere to make a Nazi's wet dream come true.

And please, spare me the replies about how everyone else using it is just evil and misusing it while you are an angel using it for good, that you totally agree with all of this yet sadly you just have to do this, reiterating the same tired Ring propaganda I listed above, and yapping some more of why they're actually good and justified in your specific situation and how everyone you know also does it and your grandma just doesn't know any better.

I do not care. You have to seek absolution from someone else because I will not read it. That's not me ignoring the other side of the argument, it's me not wasting my time on hearing the same garbage I have heard from several people and online content before. There is nothing you could tell me to change my mind, and I don't care if it's worded nicely or rudely or by a friend or a stranger. God herself could come down and hand me a letter saying all this is good and justified and it would not change. This is something I have an ethically-informed fixed stance on, something you would also have if you had a backbone.

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#2026 #tech