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What do folks on the Motte think of the "Waves" glasses? Here is the link, quoting the short tweet:
The idea seems to be another in the long string of VC-funded tech companies who seek to make their name on being controversial in the beginning, and slowly becoming socially accepted. It's extremely frustrating that this profit model seems to work, but we can't deny it does (some of the time) at this point.
On the one hand I'm deeply incensed at the thought of other people recording me without my consent. On the other hand... we already waived these rights two decades ago with the Patriot Act, effectively allowing the government and major corporations to spy on us all the time with no repercussions. I personally find it hard to be sympathetic to outrage against these glasses when our nation's legal system has completely bankrupted any notion of a personal right not to be filmed anyway.
I'm not sure which side of the culture war this benefits either. As it stands, it seems a pretty predictable evolution of trends we've been seeing in privacy and technology for a while in the West.
i can see some cashiers wearing these to protect themselves from accusations of rudeness/racism.
"gimme cigarettes."
"newps"
"no the tall pack"
"no the tall soft pack man. what the fuck"
"man what the fuck. fuck you. you saying I look like a kid"
"this is bullshit. you racist man. fuck you. i wanna see your manager man. what the fuck"
"hey i just wanted to get cigarettes and he's acting all racist. calling me a kid. and rude too. you know how he does this?"
it's a nationwide scourge. and, wanting to avoid an escalation scene, a company is absolutely inclined to throw a peon under the bus if it means avoiding a nationwide scandal.
at some point people in low status positions whose jobs are under daily threat will start to look to technology like this to protect themselves.
Despite the presence of a posted sign that says that we only have to check the ID of anyone who looks under 40, management requires that we check the ID of everyone period. I'm honestly not sure how much of this is that management thinks we're too retarded to estimate people's ages and how much of it is management figuring that it'll offend people (mostly women) for us to estimate that they look over 40 regardless of accuracy.
There is that, of course, but I think this is just CYA from management for scenarios such as the one outlined by Westphalianpeace. Can't be accused of racism if you're scanning everyone's ID.
(Of course they still can, and will, accuse you of racism and management will still throw you under the bus despite any video evidence to the contrary because a law suit is the last thing they need and some bleeding-heart activist judge will rule that asking a potentially underage urban youth for ID is racism on the same level of voter suppression, don't you know minorities have little free time to get, or access to, forms of ID you bigot? But it's a tiny shred of protection for both the business and the employees.)
In my experience, the people who get angry about their ID getting checked aren't really correlated with race. It's mostly old men who are upset that they're aging and aren't even getting the consolation prize of not needing to get their ID checked.
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