In a cameras-everywhere culture, science fiction becomes reality (2015)
The way that society has completely acquiesced to constant monitoring and tracking - not necessarily by governments, but by one another - completely blows my mind.
I’ve had coworkers casually and shamelessly pull up their living room camera for us all to see their spouse sitting on the couch in real time. I’ve been looked at like I have two heads when I say my partner and I don’t track each others’ location using Find My. These are all little erosions of personal autonomy that are kryptonite to me, but most people just don’t seem to see a problem with them. I don’t get it.
Pretty wild if you told me 20 years ago we’d buy always watching cameras for outside our homes and always listening microphones for inside our homes.
Generalization of 24/7 footage of infants <12 months could be a game-changer in the 50-year-long scientific and legal controversy around medical determinations of shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma (SBS/AHT) [1].
It is hotly debated whether the majority of these diagnoses (frequently relying on the sole observation of blood around the brain and behind the eyes in infants without any obvious explanation nor history of major trauma) represent actual cases of child abuse, or false allegations of abuse on infants suffering from undiagnosed rare diseases [2]. Legal and societal ramification of this controversy are unprecedented, with thousands of parents and caretakers emprisoned and as many children removed from their home.
The persons accused of shaking their baby because subdural and retinal hemorrhage were found are presumed guilty, and they have no way of proving their innocence, that is, that their baby was never shaken... UNLESS they're able to provide 24/7 footage of their infant (or at least, the few hours/days before the baby's sudden collapse).
I estimate that these events occur in 1 infant out of 3000 every year. I think we have the technology to generalize such recording systems dedicated to infants <12 months at a reasonable cost. With a few thousands systems in the US population for example, we'd have within a single year a few instances of babies collapsing (most often at home), brought to the hospital and presenting subdural and retinal hemorrhage with the videotaped proof of what happened before the collapse: abuse or no abuse. Whatever the cameras find out, this could be the final blow to this enduring controversy.
Of note, this recent article [3] showing exactly this, a history of short fall supposedly causing these injuries that was dismissed by doctors who usually believe short falls never cause them. Video footage obtained by the police actually proved the history of the short fall (the doctors thought it was an "outlier" though).
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402
[2] https://shakenbaby.science/
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10918...
It's a happy coincidence that thanks to AI, soon people will trust authenticity of video as much as that of written text.
Orwell's Big Brother was grim. China's Big Brother is delightfully upbeat.[1][2][3]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9p1jWfzNrg
Sometimes I wonder what it was like to live in a time and place where I and everyone around me sincerely believed that an omniscient presence was observing each of us constantly.
It's hard to say what the ultimate outcome is. Presumably, there are far more photographs taken of unguarded moments at college parties or wherever. On the other hand, I assume there is at least a degree of self-censorship and few people are literally livestreaming 24/7 or posting photos of every moment that would possibly embarass someone someday. Or maybe people just learn to mostly not care about this sort of thing.
We're about to enter a new era of recorded history where our entire lives are recorded from birth to death. Will be interesting to see all the changes that come from having complete recall of experiences.
We live in crazy times. I think people should wear body cams, record 24/7, and store video for several years, just to prevent any misunderstandings.
Imagine you are married for 20 years, and your wife remembers that 15 years ago, she was too tired to consent and you coerced her into sex. It would be great to have archival footage, that shows, she was the one who initiated on that day!
Or imagine you are a male teacher at school, and you do not record everything! Your life could be ruined so easily!