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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much harm the constant surveillance does.

We are training kids that someone is always watching. That they have to censor their thoughts and hold in their feelings rather than talk about them with others for fear of it being determined to be 'wrong'. How many of these kids will be suspended, expelled, medicated, etc for things that were harmless? I think this surveillance will cause these kids to be less independent and delay their maturation because it's safer to do what you're told, not explore questions you have, and suppress your opinions.

The number of conversations I had in school that would have gotten me I'm trouble today would be a lot. I would guess they would have expelled me for some of it, even though it was totally harmless.

Where is the cost benefit analysis? Or is this just another 'common sense' solution because 'think of the children'?

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I often think about this in regards to rules enforcement... as we get better and better at catching rule breakers because of increased surveillance, we run into an issue where the rules do not make sense anymore.

This is because our current rules were designed for a world with worse enforcement. Take, for example, the speed limit and ticket costs. Both the speed limit and price of a ticket for breaking the speed limit were set for a world of imperfect enforcement. We assume someone who is pulled over for speeding was probably speeding many times before they were pulled over, so we have the penalty set relatively high. The penalty was not designed to be given every time someone goes 2 MPH over the speed limit.

We really need to rethink the rules if we drastically change enforcement.

They are generally setting automatic tickets at a low cost and only for significant infractions. I think in MD it's like $20-25 per ticket and only when doing more than 10-15mph over.

That said, I agree with the sentiment that some penalties and rules do not make sense. Even the people who run the system know it. It's just that they get to use law enforcement or prosecutorial discretion to decide who to punish and who to let go. Which I believe fundamentally undermines the rule of law and leads to biased enforcement. I guess that's one good thing about the automated system - it treats everyone the same.

I don't like this example.

It's a _limit_, not the speed at which you have to go. Just go 5 MPH under the limit and you'll be fine. Of course if you always are on the edge there will be moments when you go over the edge, but that's on you.

> Both the speed limit and price of a ticket for breaking the speed limit were set for a world of imperfect enforcement.

I don't have a strong argument against the price of a ticket being set higher because of all this, it does make some sense. But the speed limit isn't lower than it should because we didn't use to catch every fast driver.

It's low because, as drivers tend to forget, they are not alone around the roads and the security of pedestrian (and mostly _children_), cyclists etc. requires, among other things, low speed.

"But the speed limit isn't lower than it should because we didn't use to catch every fast driver."

That's actually how they set some limits. They know that people go over the limit by a specific amount when doing traffic studies and will adjust the speed limit below the safe speed they want. They just dropped a 50mph zone to 40mph because they had too many people doing 60mph in it, which was associated with more accidents at one intersection. Now everyone does 50mph in the 40mph zone. This area did not have pedestrian or cyclist safety incidents driving this change. Getting hit at 40mph vs 50mph isnt going to make much difference to them.

"It's a _limit_, not the speed at which you have to go. Just go 5 MPH under the limit and you'll be fine."

I agree, but the topic is about enforcement. This example is a perfect illustration of how lackadaisical enforcement can influence society's views on the subject and lead to perverse system design, compliance, and enforcement.

children need to experience the world, they need to make mistakes and learn from their mistakes -thats whats being young is all about

take that away and they'll make mistakes as adults with more serious consequences

Some things that some people view as mistakes are not necessarily large mistakes. For example, people swear all the time, and yet some schools might expel or suspend the child if the child is caught swearing.

Having such a reaction to something so minor is a problem.

> Having such a reaction to something so minor is a problem.

Swearing is one of those things that ranges from not being a problem to being a big problem. Kids using words because they are forbidden is not a problem. A kid swearing in front of teachers to signal disrespect is something that needs to be addressed. A child swearing at another child in anger, then it may be necessary to unwind what's going on and that may determine if harsh consequences are necessary. While I have never heard of a child being suspended/expelled over swearing, yet if it did happen it was probably due to something else going on.

Part of the problem with this surveillance is, at best, we can flag conversations that correlate with certain outcomes. Things like understanding context and motivation take discourse, yet understanding context and motivation are essential when considering a course of action.

(Of course the other part of the problem are the privacy implications, which is horrific if even a tiny fraction of what the article claims is true.)

> A kid swearing in front of teachers to signal disrespect is something that needs to be addressed.

… because an early understanding of the educational system might lead to incorrect voting later in life, with potentially serious consequences for said system's tax revenues.

"incorrect voting" Are you mad?

Mad? No, I just forgot that I'm on American VC News, so it's necessary to assume a stuffed-shirt stick-up-the-arse inability to grasp any literary device.

Likely anecdotal, but I recall doing a bad behavior (throwing another kids binder over the school fence), that absolutely mortified me in second grade.

Another one was me kicking an exit door of a school when a friend was deliberately holding the exit door closed.

Looking back, the punishments felt arbitrary based on some random factor that I didn’t understand as a kid. Throwing a binder meant monetary compensation (described by the principal). Kicking the door didn’t have a definitive reason, but I assumed general “rambunctiousness” was to blame.

Maybe I’m passing the buck here, but I didn’t completely understand the result of my actions, and felt, as an adult, was an obvious opportunity to teach a kid something enlightening but instead just got passed to my parents who were happy to punish me without context. I’m 38

One data point for you to add to the arbitrary column...

One of my children chucked their school laptop out of their bedroom window which then landed on concrete fifty feet below. The display was shattered, so I emailed the school and informed them that the laptop had been dropped and damaged, and can we order a replacement. They let us know the replacement cost, and we picked up the new laptop a few weeks later but were never billed for the expense :)

Out of curiosity, how did you discipline your child? What were the consequences?

They owned up to it and were so upset about having done it that the discipline/consequences imposed were pretty mild. I made the point several times to them that they were incredibly lucky that no one was hit by it on the way down, and that they absolutely can't do it again. I'm pretty sure they hadn't thought that through.

An observation: starting a few years back, it is now virtually impossible for teenagers (well anyone really) to do stupid things without being filmed and potentially exposed globally. Everybody carries smartphones. I did lots of dumb shit when I was younger. Thank god no-one was livestreaming it to the world back then.

We could do away with cellphones and the always present cameras but addicts act like addicts and will explain how that’s impossible and would be really terrible etc. Because teenage girls really need Instagram or all human progress is nullified, or something like that.

At the same time, there is both pushback to this very thing and some children have their world broadened in ways that are helpful. Maybe it is my age having some effect on my attitude, but that last bit is what made the INternet so magical... back in the days of AOL chat rooms. I had access to a lot of people and some of them simply accepted me for me. So much better than folks asking my friends why they were even friends with me or folks following me around laughing just within hearing.

I really wish I had internet sooner just for the comfort.

> it is now virtually impossible for teenagers (well anyone really) to do stupid things without being filmed and potentially exposed globally

You say it like they didnt get everyone to gather around and film them while they did dumb shit in the hope that it would 'go viral' on tik tok and make them into the next meme.

> We are training kids that someone is always watching. That they have to censor their thoughts and hold in their feelings rather than talk about them with others for fear of it being determined to be 'wrong'.

This isn’t entirely new. Without context you could be describing many religions.

Religions teach that God forgives though. People don’t. Governments most definitely don’t.

But the civil authorities didn't. You'd be still burned at the stake, but if you agreed with the people burning you that you deserved it you'd get a good afterlife.

The problem I have is the internet was wild when I grew up and it was the place to escape life. Now the internet is worse than real life and real life has been reduced to staying at home because of covid (your experience varies greatly by geo location).

Tor, freenet and other networks that are actively hostile to the majority of users now feel like how the www felt in 1997. Here's hoping that their inherent nonmonetizability keeps them from going down the same path.

Some do, but what most people fear is the judgement of their peers and community. Eg being burned alive but promised forgiveness in eternity is not a deal most people would accept.

Parents should just take their children out of school, and home school or 'unschool' them.

Regarding your question, this is an example of people choosing to do something because they can and not because they should. In fact, the surveillance is likely a violation of the 4th Amendment of the US Bill of Rights.

Parent's don't have the time or experience, usually needing to work. Teaching impressionable young minds is a skill, not a "let them lose and hope it works" situation. I would also trust a curriculum that has been vetted and tried, not parental indoctrine; or skipping some subjects entirely, like anti-CRT proponents have shown.

Also kids need to be around other children to socialise, school provides rhat

I live in a smallish town/city and you can very easily become connected with a variety of home schooling networks that help kids socialize, parents learn from other parents, etc. I've never really encountered a stereotypical "anti-social homeschool kid" in the wild.

I second this. I've had friends who were homeschooled that were probably better socialized, more well behaved, etc than a significant number of the 'regular' kids at my school. Of course there could be some observation bias if the truly antisocial homeschool kids never go anywhere to meet them, while the antisocial school kids are forced to go to school (which probably makes their situation even worse).

Yes, luckily there are some very good resources available now for parents. Khan Academy, IXL, Well Trained Mind, etc.

I should add that I think elementary school is valuable for children, as most of that is social and it's with the same teacher and fellow students for most of the day. Digital surveillance starts in middle school and high school, which is when students are old enough to start self-directed learning.

It's worth thinking about how many parents would have to pull their children out of school due to concerns over privacy invasion before the school system decided to change its policy or tech stack.

> We are training kids that someone is always watching.

This probably goes down better in religious societies. It used to be that this "someone" was an amorphous deity. A child was constantly told they are under the watchful eye of someone-up-there.

Now it's the outsourced, underpaid Creepy Joe from this week's surveillance technology company.

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