Having a device that can be used for surveillance is not the same thing as someone actively choosing to report their neighbor.

Been having similar thoughts. We’ll very soon be back in the age of internment camps, reporting on neighbors’ behavior, and minorities looking over their shoulders even more than usual. I am ashamed of us.

This kind of direct home visit has been happening for years in Muslim regions of China, for different reasons. At least these pregnancy visits (ugh feels gross to even talk about) don’t involve home stays, but any time the state shows up at your door to surveil your family, your human rights have been violated. It’s incredibly invasive and dystopian.

“Muslim families across Xinjiang are now literally eating and sleeping under the watchful eye of the state in their own homes,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch.

In early 2018, Xinjiang authorities extended this “home stay” program. Cadres spend at least five days every two months in the families’ homes. There is no evidence to suggest that families can refuse such visits.

Source

In general I think you’re right about the tech just being shitty, but a slight correction: LiDAR was not developed for self-driving, it’s just a relevant application of the technology. LiDAR has been around for quite a while, and was initially best known as a remote sensing technology. It is effective at remote sensing because it can penetrate certain solid materials, most importantly foliage. So when an aerial LiDAR dataset is collected for a forested area, since the light can penetrate through most of the foliage, one can essentially ‘delete’ the vegetation from the resulting point cloud, leaving a bare earth model, which is a very close approximation of the landscape’s actual topography if there had been no trees. This can be especially valuable for archaeological research, as foliage is often a significant obstacle for accurately mapping large sites, or even finding them in the first place.

All of that to say, yeah, self-driving buzz made LiDAR well known as tech, but it wasn’t developed for that purpose.

That makes a lot of sense, thanks!

I was actually wondering about this, since a close relative of mine probably won’t make it to election day: if you legally cast your ballot (mail in or absentee), but die before Election Day, does your vote still count?

I’m so glad this guy is sticking with the bit. Patrick Gathara for those wondering. This framing does a spectacular job of exposing the absurdity of American politics and ‘American Exceptionalism’ on the world stage.

He did one for the Democratic Convention too, which was excellent.