I honestly don't know what the essay's point is. It starts off promising, gives good general advice about looking at friend of friends to finding these cars and looking past cosmetic issues. But it stops there.
Okay, I can ignore things like the car doesn't look nice or doors don't lock. But what should I actually look for? What are the things I shouldn't compromise about? Is there some useful metric to calculate useful life of the car? Rules of thumb for issues that may arise, like bad brakes, tires, engine noise, etc? What are things I can fix myself?
Thanks! :) I didn't mean to make it an explainer of how to actually do the thing. I've been meeting a lot of people in my DC policy circles who didn't realize you could buy a car below $5,000. To be honest, I'd have to ask my dad to answer your more specific questions.
My point was this is cultural knowledge among blue-collar circles. My other posts were about things I learned about white-collar circles.
To try to answer your questions: I don't think there's any useful metric. Unfortunately, you never know how long a car will last. It just lasts until it's giving you a lot of trouble. The things you can fix yourself are depends more on your willingness to spend time + money on parts, not just mechanics. I'd say my family personally stop a bit earlier than some because we're not ourselves mechanics as a side hobby. The answer is different for every person. :)
I think the point is that inflation numbers are bs. The official number from 2021 to today is 23%. But we didn't see prices only 23%. A restaurant mean didn't go from $20 to $25. It easily went up 50% or more.
Inflation isn't some force of nature that needs to be accounted for like the curvature of the earth.
When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.
There's literally trillions at stake for under-reporting these numbers. A lot of government benefits are tied to this not to mention political ramifications of high inflation. So I'll go with vibes (i.e. experienced reality) over some government re-balanced basket formula
Last I checked usernames aren't a public good. You're part of a social network and they get to set the policy.
Sure, you can claim it was a dick move, and maybe it is (although why is a handle so valuable? "muse instagram" now links to the @museband and their followers were transferred). This is just some phony outrage.
It's also ironic that the overlap of people that find this offensive but were fine with social media censorship since "it's a private company" is > 0%
> Last I checked usernames aren't a public good. You're part of a social network and they get to set the policy.
I'd count this as "strong-armed into this".
The giants want all the benefits of being public spaces with none of the responsibilities. To use their (US) constitutional right to free speech to sell any ad they want, while using their power (as a private corporation) to ban (or algorithmically censor) unwanted speech. To decide what counts as a "legitimate" name. And if they can manage it, to be so important its use is defacto mandatory, without democratic oversight.
>To use their (US) constitutional right to free speech to sell any ad they want
First I've heard of this, in what case was free speech used to justify a right to show a specific ad?
>while using their power (as a private corporation) to ban (or algorithmically censor) unwanted speech
It's actually the opposite, they justify being a public forum for free spech in order NOT to be liable for vetting and publishing the content, they want to be considered a neutral intermediary, not a publisher liable in any way for whatever is published.
> First I've heard of this, in what case was free speech used to justify a right to show a specific ad?
All of them? This is pretty much the default case. If Meta or Google or whoever say "we don't want to show this ad", they're allowed to, it's fine, they're not a public (/government) space who has to follow the 1st's requirement to not-censor.
My point is Meta and Google (I assume others but they're the big ones), want to be treated as an entity with first amendment rights, rather than one with first amendment responsibilities, even though they're also trying to position themselves as mandatory or the only space (that matters).
> It's actually the opposite, they justify being a public forum for free spech in order NOT to be liable for vetting and publishing the content, they want to be considered a neutral intermediary, not a publisher liable in any way for whatever is published.
Sounds like you're talking about section 230; I read there's a lot of misinformation about that. Apparently what it really does is protect (at least some subset of) "good faith" filtering like spam filters. However, what a lot of people today object to is under the (painfully vague to all us software nerds) title of "the algorithm", which is basically editorialising for maximum user engagement/addiction.
Anywho, here's a quick search result of one example where they were found to be "that's fine" for terminating ad campaigns:
It's just non-responsive to the parent comment. Lay people would consider that "stolen," whether the original account holder possessed a legal right to the name or not. GP even quoted it like that to show they were not talking about the legal concept of ownership.
You are dismissing this as "unhelpful negativity", but are not addressing in any way the obvious (and rather malicious, I would say) PR play that parent comment points out.
This is exactly the message, and I for one welcome the anti-cool-aid sentiments being very visible in public spaces.
>the obvious (and rather malicious, I would say) PR play that parent comment points out.
The author Lawrence Ulrich references research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Why would it be "obvious" that they are paid PR shills for Tesla/Waymo?
I'm jaded and cynical so I can accept that they may be secret PR mouthpieces but isn't it reasonable to expect a little evidence rather than just throwing out a random accusation?
IIHS works for the insurance industry who will happily throw you under the bus if it makes things more predictable on their side. Not better, not lower claims, more predictable.
The alignment between what is good for you and good for the interests they answer two is not all that much.
But of course, they work very hard to market themselves as peddlers purely of safety, after all only a barbarian would be against safety <mockingly clutches pearls>
This isn't to say that some people they don't care, but giving a crap isn't gonna change the incentives.
How do using autonomous vehicles benefit their claims-settling? Wouldn't it make it unpredictable- in an accident between two self-driving vehicles, who is liable? What if both vehicles are from the same company? Doesn't this lead to extreme variability?
Can you actually define what the kool-aid is here? Because AV companies are saying "look at this new product, it objectively drives better and safer than a human, you don't have to deal with a human driver, it works 24/7, and in our experience most people prefer it to driving."
I have NEVER seen a single person accuse anyone of being a bad person for still preferring to drive a car manually. Not once, not even the usual one or two crazy people you can find to support almost any other crazy statement.
Where is the kool-aid from the robotaxi side that's so visible? Keep in mind that "kool-aid" implies that something is factually incorrect.
> "look at this new product, it objectively drives better and safer than a human, you don't have to deal with a human driver, it works 24/7, and in our experience most people prefer it to driving."
A lot of these are true about other things like pedestrian-friendly streets, bike lanes, and mass rail transit. The kool-aid is that the robotaxi people act like they are the first one to solve this problem.
Pedestrian friendly streets are great! You can't walk that far, and I love walking places when I have time and energy.
Bike lanes are great! I bike to work. If I'm not careful I'll arrive sweaty, and that inherently limits when and where I bike.
Mass rail transit is great! It cannot get directly to every door or frequently even to within walking distance of every door (I take a train to the office when I don't wanna bike).
I really do understand that it's trendy to hate on cars. There are a lot of bad things that come with car dependence.
All of that is true AND YET cars make us more productive and allow us to do things that would be impossible otherwise.
Robotaxi companies are not trying to replace any of those things. That makes no sense because they don't need to do that to succeed.
So I will ask again: what is the kool-aid that I'm supposedly drinking?
I think you're drinking the "technology is apolitical and will solve all our problems" American-drink-I-ve-never-seen.
We've seen what can be done with the magical technologies of today, like misinformation abd mass surveillance. I think it's naive to assume self driving technology won't be used badly, specially when car infrastructure is already a "political" topic, having impact in city planning, budgets and stuff.
I remember this video by CGP Grey where the guy says like when all cars are self-driving cars everything will be perfect.
I remember, in 2016, liking the video, then time passed, went to Europe, and saw the actual solution to the problem. And now, in 2026, I see a bunch of comments in the video in the same vein.
Technology can solve problems which are objectively measurable. If you want the politics to match your ideals you can vote and volunteer; blaming self driving cars for issues caused by politics is like blaming construction companies for arson.
Saying an article is just PR, without addressing the specific article is not helpful.
Argue how the author was funded by such and such a group with ties to this other group. Say something about the methodology used. Say literally anything about the actual post.
This would be the equivalent of me just calling you a "shill" with no other context. The burden of proof is on you since you're making the claim that this is misleading PR.
Corporations are more accountable than government agencies. A government agency can switch vendors or you can drag their CEOs in front of Congress. Try that with some internal bureaucrat in an agency you've never heard of.
Leaders of departments (i.e. the government equivalent of a CEO) are dragged in front of congress all the time.
The government at least has a theoretical obligation to promote the public good. It isn't much but it's better than corporations whose only obligation is the shareholders.
The government is also subject to safeguards like freedom of infermation requests which level the playingfield somewhat.
I'm not saying that the government is good. I'm just saying that corporations are much worse.
Not even remotely true, Idk how you can say this with a straight face after all we have seen in Trump 1 and Trump 2.
Elected officials are basically the CEOs of each of these agencies, they have massive unilateral control and, apparently, can simply choose to unmake the agency at any point.
Except unlike CEOs, they require regular voter approval or they get punted out. If they make a stink the public hates the next president can easily axe their ass. That alone is infinitely better; how many of these horrible companies have 10-20 year CEOs pushing all this shit?
>drag their CEO into congress.
So they can lie and stick their tongue out for days, or just not show up? There is never any consequence for this, congress is functionally toothless. Only the courts and the executive can actually use punitive action.
The fact that there is an avenue of redress at all for public officials makes them so much more accountable than any corporation. Which is exactly why corporations spend so much money influencing public election and congress, they need to subvert the only system than can keep them in check.
I was surprised to learn that many countries have what amounts to a flock equivalent. UK for instance has a National ANPR Service w 12k fixed cameras and 90-100m plates read a day. They also store it much longer.
Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online.
The UK has been a surveillance state for decades. Heck you can’t even watch television without going on a register and inspectors coming to your door verifying your TV paperwork is in order. Imagine trying that in the US!
This sort of thing is just starting more broadly in the US and Americans are not happy about it.
It’s the new political hot potato where behind the scenes they’re pressured to support it but publicly saying so is political kryptonite.
For US politicians the only thing worse than saying you support Flock cameras is advocating for an AI data center in your community.
I never thought of UK as a police state. How about Netherlands w a similar program? Non watchlist plates are kept for 28 days compared to most flock implementations that keep for 7
Uk has been widely know as a budding police state for years. V for Vendetta was written in the 80s partially as a commentary on the British states turn towards a police state.
The funny thing is that countries commonly called “police states” aren’t, while countries not thought of as such are.
Most Western countries have 2-3 times as many police officers per capita as China and Russia. Many people in China have had not a single encounter with authorities in their lifetime (other than basic administrative tasks).
Meanwhile, in some EU countries, you need government approval to add a roof window to your own house, and you better believe there are inspectors and fines enforcing that.
By “police state” people generally mean one where day to day behavior, speech, and thought are tightly controlled by the government. Not so much police per capita or building codes.
We can debate whether the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that rooftop windows don’t make house fires dramatically more dangerous, but I don’t think there’s much debate to be had about whether it should be a crime to own a picture of a man standing in front of a tank.
Yes, instead the UK and Europe “debank” and sanction opposition journalists so that they can’t continue functioning, without so much as a public hearing and with no way to contest it.
Not sure which is worse, actually. At least everyone in China knew that you shouldn’t mention June 4th. When there’s a clear line, you can avoid it or use indirect references to make your point.
Western countries are richer per capita, they can afford more government per capita.
Higher yields mean more overhead for taxes. More overhead more taxes means more money for the lord. More money for the lord means more men at arm. More men at arms means more ability to shake down the peasants for even more.
It's a self feeding cycle, well until you get out competed by the next country that didn't waste all that overhead trying to enforce a local maximum.
Not at all true of your average Chinese. Remember, the Great Leap Forward and it's enormous famine and death and violent social upheaval is all within living memory. A few small pockets of the country had only minimal starving thanks to local authorities that quietly disobeyed Mao's directives and managed to 'fly under the radar' so to speak, but outside of those areas virtually everyone was touched in one way or another. Most of them are also extremely aware and very effected by the modern day rural/urban birth location apartheid, where if you're born outside of certain areas you can move to others -- but your kids will get 2nd-rate (if any) education, you won't get health care, etc.
And that's not to even speak of your lived experience if you're an ethnic minority in China. Tibetans don't self-immolate out of boredom.
Can't speak about Russia, the Russians I know personally all left before the Putin era really got going and isn't reflective of the current state of affairs over there, but what you said is the opposite of truth regarding China.
Because Flock is privately owned while ANPR seems to my cursory research to be government owned.
And we all know what private corporations do to peoples data.
I'm not sure about your exp w government agencies, but in my experience, I much prefer private companies. Much easier to hold to account.
Just as an example, NYC mayor is going after landlords for violations and tenant rights. He has hearings regularly. However there is no enforcement of the law when it comes to government owned housing projects, which are very often not kept up to code and are outright dangerously mismanaged
What big-tech companies have been _actually_ held accountable for data misuse, as in, 'consequences that actually mattered'?
Being able to absorb fines just turns them into a cost-of-doing-business tax.
Billions in fines is at least an incentive to invest in measures to prevent data leaks or misuse.
For instance, in July 2026 the D.C. Department of Health Care Finance discovered that two reports published on its own website contained hidden underlying personal data that unauthorized users could access. The reports were supposed to show aggregate statistics, but the accessible data could include Medicaid IDs, birth dates, provider names, race, gender, ward, and ethnicity. The exposure potentially existed from 2023 until July 2026.
Do you want to guess how many billions in fines or people were fired due to the leak?
Does the city have exclusive jurisdiction over those projects? Honest question, not familiar with NYC government housing. Some places have county, state, or federal preemption.
The US isn't the UK or China and different cultures deem different things as acceptable. The UK for example is also a monarchy, which would rial up people in the US if proposed there.
Additionally the trust that the government uses these cameras as intended is apparently higher in the UK than the trust of Americans that Flock will not misuse their surveillance technology.
In the UK overall, 64% of the population support police use of facial recognition technology to some degree and only 11% were opposed to its use [1]. The survey also looks at support for different szenarios, but overall many generally did not oppose it, while in the US 47% oppose the use of flock cameras [2].
The Flock stat is interesting because 46% of Americans believe widespread use of facial recognition would be a good thing (27% unsure).
Maybe people oppose Flock because it's not going far enough! Or maybe there is a coordinated campaign against a license plate reader for some weird reason
No, it arrests several thousands of people every year for breaches of the communications act(s) - this could be for online harassment, stalking or trying to defraud people over Facebook messenger.
Flock became a controversy when it was being used for ICE raids and tracking people who got abortions rather than its original stated purpose of finding stolen cars.
Yes, but in that very link it explains how they work with the public to establish some trust?
"Any current issues of public concern?
It is recognised the extent of the UK network is a privacy concern and the scale of that network is likely to remain so for...
The NPCC ANPR lead has established an Independent Advisory Group (IAG) chaired by the Surveillance Camera Commissioner (SCC), with a broad representation from civil society and other..."
We all know that governments are going to be corrupted. We all know that democracy sucks sometimes or even alot of the time. At least if there is a government agency to communicate with that collects that data and keeps it over time, when the government changes there is the possibility to seek redress.
If the information and systems are held by corporations or other unaccountable third parties who may not be subject to public scrutiny or records keeping requirements, then how do you seek redress and enforcement over time?
Apples to oranges. Sure, there are ANPR systems in other countries, but they have to operate under very different regulations, and cannot collect information haphazardly like Flock.
Using your exact suggested query for Germany will quickly tell you that mass retention of ANPR data is illegal, and only matching against "targeted suspect databases" is acceptable. Even usages of the technology in private areas have to comply with data protection rules.
That's funny because ANPR systems are much looser in other countries including much longer retention. It helps that you don't have national newspapers printing negative articles around the technology every day!
Putting aside how disproportionately noisy some activist types are, it probably has to do with Americans having practically no trust in one another, corporations in particular, and their government by extension. At the same time, Americans tend to value some positive forms of liberty - like the ability to say and do what you want in one moment - far more than other forms of liberty - like the ability for all people to feel safe enough to be able to do the things they want.
I’m an American living in Japan, I’ve always felt a great sense of liberty because of how safe it is here; I can live a lifestyle that would get me robbed pretty much immediately in the USA. While crime rates have always been relatively low here; part of that is because Japan got tough on crime around the turn of the century, and one part of that was pervasive rollout of automated license scanners used for reconstructing vehicle movement, like Flock. I suspect that Japanese people didn’t accept this because they don’t care about privacy - they absolutely do - but instead because they have a healthy enough social context to be able to consider the tradeoffs, and a government responsive enough to design around those tradeoffs; rather than immediately flying into a rage and vandalizing their cities like some angry Americans are doing now.
The same thing plays out for other things that would pretty clearly be a good thing, like having a real secure national ID instead of relying on social security numbers for identity verification (terrible). Can’t do it, people (as well as criminals) value the liberty of being difficult to trace far more than the liberty of not being defrauded regularly, or having a civil service that is able to do basic functions like authenticating you for benefits efficiently. Sigh…
In the US flock is routinely used by law enforcement personnel to stalk exes and for other abuses. Are police in those other countries equally untrustworthy?
To me, that’s a problem of oversight, audit trails, consequences, and the relationship of police with their communities; not of Flock itself. And based on what I’m reading, they are reacting - criminal case IDs will be required to do searches and automated monitoring of misuse will be mandatory by default soon. So the anger against Flock itself seems misplaced.
It makes me feel so much better than someone can be one-shotted into a political belief with a poem. I was worried they would rely too much on reasoning and evidence.
The poem in question conveys not just accurate history, but also it presents an argument in favor of standing for your neighbors . Even more, it conveys the feeling of loneliness when it comes to be your turn - both another argument for community and just a reminder that actual real humans are involves.
Not bad for a few lines of text... very efficient.
Of course your whole statement is ridiculous - the notion that a poem is the foundation of a belief rather than a good conveyance of it, is so stupid that all you are saying is that you can't come up with a good argument and are reaching for bad, unfunny snark to deflect.
> Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online.
A big reason is because there's virtually no oversight, and it's managed by a single private corporation nationwide. Neither of those things are true in the UK case.
You should really educate yourself on things like this. They matter, and by your apathy and ignorance you're helping sleepwalk your country into a dystopia.
Why do you care what your kebab shop uses for their menus? These people are trying to run a business. If this can allow them to clearly communicate prices in a well designed pleasant way, it's great. Why must they slave away in design and technology or pay someone to do it for them? I think it's great
If I eat at a restaurant and that restaurant has images of their food, I want those to be “real images” of what they will bring me when I pay. Otherwise it’s misleading.
Not sure exactly what images we're talking about here, places above "medium-scale" typically don't have images on their menus at all, and mostly have real iamges on their Instagram and website, of course professionally taken and edited though.
Somewhat related but I saw this tweet that claims the SAT and ACT has been significantly relaxed to produce higher scores. The competition is to try to make an easier test so more people use that test and pay the fees. The post was from someone selling an alternative, so it should be taken w a grain of salt. But if you look at Harvard, the median SAT score is 1550 today, much higher than before.
Another post gave an example of a real SAT question, which I will present below:
The following text is from David Barclay Moore’s 2022 novel Holler of the Fireflies. The narrator has just arrived at summer camp, which is far away from his home.
This place was different than I thought it would be. I’d never been somewhere like this before. I did feel scared, but also excited.
According to the text, how does the narrator feel about being at summer camp?
>Another post gave an example of a real SAT question, which I will present below:
As other X users have noted, it might just be a "easy" question and not reflective of the entire test. Also from a test perspective it makes sense to have "easy" questions, so the scores have proper scaling. If you're designing a test to judge science ability, but all the questions are about quantum physics, then you'll have a bunch of people scoring 0 just because it's outside of their ability and have no hope of answering.
Its a camera bro, reading the same license plates your can read with your eyes. If you care about your precincts policies go take it up with them. You may as well go after companies selling firearms to police.
There is a massive difference between a human making observations and 120,000 cameras (at last count) coordinated through a single company's computer systems. This surveillance state enablement is as anti-American as it gets.
They take pictures of cars in certain intersections and register their license plates and keep them between 0 and 30 days typically (usually 7). It can be queried and logged. So if someone gets kidnapped and they're looking for someone its easy to track them.
There have been 1m “cases supported” and helping to locate approximately 10k missing persons. If you don't believe that look at a few real cases. Every example of a bad case is basically cops keeping tabs on ex-girlfiends or wives. Yes, that's bad but I prefer to save kids from kidnapping.
Saying its "anti-American" isn't an argument. I think it's very pro-American in that it protects law abiding Americans from criminals.
Agreed. Which is why I’m in favor of recording all conversations within earshot of any public location. Those can be tagged for keywords related to child endangerment. After all, who would argue against protecting kids?
In fact, we should take the pictures from public school districts and feed them into this system. Facial recognition immediately available on any kid that happens to walk on any public street. Why would anyone want to opt out of such a system?
Or how about we have a license plate camera in some intersections, that records license plates that can be queried by police officer to try to find perpetrators of crime. Pretty much the same thing right?
200k kids are kidnapped each year (overwhelmingly by family) but hey they stopped a small percentage so we should all give up our rights to the government. You’re a fool.
You certainly do. If you're not willing to wear a camera and microphone 24/7 for the good of the police, then you're helping the kidnappers hide their crimes and legitimize their privacy.
This is why the human life arithmetic has to be dropped if you want to genuinely steelman your point, it's a tortured statistic that we can use to justify any number of outlawed practices. If you can defend your point sincerely without the use of hysteric examples, then please walk us through the logic and authority that convinces you Flock is good. If you can't, then I'm going to have to agree with the people dogpiling on you, this is a ridiculous opinion.
It's sarcasm. It only offends you because we're reusing your justification for a more extreme encroachment of privacy.
Can we drop the human life arithmetic and discuss the pros/cons like normal people? Do you understand why your stance is being repeatedly mocked in the same exact way?
"It's a camera bro, taking the same pictures of your daughter that anyone can take with their phone. If you don't want there to be a log of the route she walks home, take it up with the police."
Why hold back? Clearly we should install live-feed cameras in every home so we can solve most domestic crimes; surely a little police abuse shouldn't prevent such a profound reduction of crime. It's not like any of these people have rights or anything like that. /s
Okay, I can ignore things like the car doesn't look nice or doors don't lock. But what should I actually look for? What are the things I shouldn't compromise about? Is there some useful metric to calculate useful life of the car? Rules of thumb for issues that may arise, like bad brakes, tires, engine noise, etc? What are things I can fix myself?
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