Once we all get old enough this will just be the crazy ramblings and no one will care. What the children are told and believe is true is what will be the truth.

Once we're all dead this won't even be an issue.

Maybe your old enough to remember a time when you could walk away and live somewhere without anyone from your old life being able to find you...I'm not.

Maybe you remember when "everyone" 15+ didn't have a constant connection to the internet or at least the police....I'm not.

Maybe you remember being able to go places alone as a child... I don't.

I remember being able to break school rules (running in the hall) and evade punishment because there was no way to prove it... these kids will not.

My great grandparents remember a time when going to another country didn't require the permission of your home country, when leaving your country meant you weren't a part of it anymore... I'd bet you do not.

--Edit (added conclusion)-- It seems like with each generation we become used to a little less freedom and a little more control. A little more comfort and a little less connection with the non man made world. Maybe this is how it's always been. Maybe it's just another by product of the agricultural revolution drawing us all closer together.

> It seems like with each generation we become used to a little less freedom and a little more control.

This has probably been true to a certain extent ever since we began organizing into tribes. However, I would put forward that even if you aggregate all of the liberty concessions humankind has made for the last few millennia, it would pale in comparison to the supreme control afforded by technological improvements of the last 20 years.

Yes things certainly are moving faster then ever before. I do quite wonder where it is were going

Bad places. But no one will care, because as long as you’re a good little obedient humming bee that doesn’t make noise outside the status quo, you will be safe and fine and ignored.

Fahrenheit 451 is a view of that future.

In China, definitely. They are halfway there, using Orwell's 1984 as a playbook now that the right tech innovations have made big brother surveillance possible.

Will it happen in the U.S.? Definitely not. Political influence on daily life is astoundingly weak here compared to China. Government is far more efficient in China too and can manage big projects like this (whereas the U.S. recently took 100 years to build a new subway line in Manhattan while China is criss crossing their vast country with high speed rail and probably hundreds of other transit projects).

Our knack for mismanagement of contracts and political disunity save us from ourselves. Plus you don't get sent to death camps for your political or religious ideology here unlike China and Oceana in 1984, so there isn't much worry even if one were built unless you are one to go off robbing and killing.

Fahrenheit 451 is a very, very different book from 1984. Pleasure and an obsession with non-offense eventually lead to where they were in that story.

I feel like Brave New World is another interesting side of this coin when you are attempting to see where the future is headed. Constant dopamine production stimulation and complacency with things seems to feel more relevant in the US (and most other western countries, I assume) than the straight up authoritarian dystopia ala 1984 (which is imo more resembling of China).

Agreed. And I wonder if the answer would be different if they asked parents instead of kids (who remember having regular, metal knives at school cafeterias; being able to bring a folding knife to school; etc.).

It seems to me that that public acceptance of such surveillance is a side effect of the mainstream media pushing scares and sensationalist coverage (because this is the only thing they have a chance of selling), not some grand evil plan, but not sure.

In some countries like the UK, even adults are discouraged and disallowed from carrying folding knives anywhere. Scenes like this are commonplace: https://twitter.com/MPSRegentsPark/status/974645778558980096

Okay, I was scrolling through this feed to find some proof that this is a joke account. But they are actually serious, right?

Are there laws in the UK that allow the police to enter your house and steal all your tools? For people who didn't click on the link: It is a picture with literally nothing but tools supposedly found during a "#weaponSweep"

This is fucking dystopian

I have all the knives they found in the wooden block in my kitchen. I would look like an arms dealer to them.

Just wait until narwhal tusk and fire extinguisher make it onto that list.

> Scenes like this

The link points to one example.

The OP didn't support their assertion that constables commonly confiscate screwdrivers during weapons sweeps, but I don't think OP intended the picture prove that, just to show the definition of "weapon" in use.

Here’s another example: https://i.redd.it/hzigm9tmiyn21.png

School children do occasionally stab each other using scissors (e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-47474896). Depending on the context, removing large scissors from the school premises is not obviously an overreaction. The ones pictured are much larger than required for most crafty purposes, and have sharp rather than rounded ends.

This is a red herring in any case, since schools in the US would be perfectly entitled to remove scissors, guns, machetes, etc. etc. from their premises if they chose to, regardless of the 2A.

Moreover, to the extent that items such as scissors actually are banned in any significant number of UK schools (I doubt it), this is a new development that has nothing to do with gun control. There has been no significant change to gun control legislation since the mid 90s, whereas I can attest that scissors were certainly available in UK schools into the mid 2000s.

You’re really fond of the fatuous technicalities, aren’t you? Of course confiscating knives, scissors, screwdrivers, and pliers isn’t technically gun control because these tools aren’t technically guns. Well-observed.

No, I meant to point out that schools in the US can confiscate anything they like - it's not a 2A issue.

The picture doesn't show the definition of 'weapon' in common use, as it's an isolated example.

If only the media were less sensational kids would not be under constant surveillance by the technology that HN posters are helping to develop.

> mainstream media pushing scares and sensationalist coverage

It's almost as if fear sells.

When someone's selling fear, only cowards are buying.

They probably won’t even feel safe without it.

From what I've heard of students, the surveillance they are under is a constant reminder that they are "not safe". People are just now starting to study what should have always been obvious: that active shooter drills are traumatic to students [1].

These topics are much easier to tackle than the real issues effecting students.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/11/10/778015261/experts-worry-activ...

I remember seeing a post on reddit from a school teacher describing the active shooter training they received from a local police department. Apparently it just turned into an opportunity for the police to berate and shout at the teachers and students.

Police training other people per-supposes that the police officers of the United States are well trained. If they are not, then the training they provide will be even worse

Who would have thought being told to corral like cattle under a table to rehearse waiting for rapid fire death wouldn't inspire much confidence.

I agree that it is way over-the-top.

Counterpoint to your conditioning point: kids tend to rebel against oversight, and will probably include this in the list of things they reject.

I think this is a gross over-exaggeration. While it is not uncommon for kids to rebel against, for example, their parents at a certain and whatnot, I think this is different than saying that the majority of kids will do it.

The public school system functions as a major conditioning environment to get children used to the norms of society, including deference to authority, following rules, and other things that are generally accepted as good. This is the ideal time for those things to happen because of how pliable the young mind still is.

However, we must be very careful how constrained we make such environments and the idea that safety is guaranteed by subjecting kids to what is effectively zero privacy means we've traded, yet again, liberty for security, thus relinquishing the effective right to both.

This will be as effective at rooting out violence in schools as bombing 3rd world villages has been in rooting out terrorism. Until the underlying issues are addressed (mental health, social disparities, racial divides, etc.) the kettle will continue boiling over and more-and-more unpredictable and chaotic ways.

Or they will observe the world doesn't burn down around them with this level of surveillance in place and will come to find it normal.

Which may very well be fine; perhaps it's a useful normal.

The problem is that it's very difficult to see the far-reaching consequences of policy that affects entire generations. People in the 1800s observed that using fossil fuels in abundance doesn't burn down the world around them, but we know now that that's not really true.

The world won't burn down, they'll just slowly and quietly lose their freedom over the course of decades. They might not even notice, since it will happen invisibly through self-censorship and implied consequences. The very idea of freedom will seem useless in their own hands and frightening in others'. Control will be centralized liberalism will give way to fear. Everything will keep moving, but the people will not be in control of their own rule.

What freedom is being lost that isn't already lost. You go to the grocery store? The mall? The ball park? City hall? Your doctors office? Your college? The package room at your apartment? The airport? The train station? The gas station?

All currently under surveillance and have been since the invention of the security camera. No one bats an eye, these are to document crimes that have occurred.

Suddenly public schools also use cameras for the same purpose, and this is where the line is drawn? Personally, I feel much more comfortable having a government that represents me and offers me a recourse in charge of security footage than some asshole who runs the gas station and does who knows what with the footage when he gets home.

>and it’s conditioning future generations to accept this level of surveillance as adults.

They will absolutely never be free of surveillance in a modern society, whether private or by government, anyway. Might as well get them used to it. They will always have devices on them that track everything they do. Society is beyond caring about privacy. Having toys and convenience is much more exciting. Hopefully they're also conditioning future generations to become docile slaves of their workplaces.