It's the phones and the propaganda being streamed through them 24/7. And if your reaction is, "the rest of the Western world has that too," well, they're really not all that far behind us.
For me (not OP) a clear example I can give from a collage of my past three visits: arrive at JFK, get in the immigration queue, heavily armed agents walking around, some ICE agents looking tough surrounding the area, someone is directing the queue like we are cattle.
Get to the immigration officer, answer questions, get a cold stare a few times looking at me and my passport, unpleasantly asked why do I have two passports (I'm a dual citizen), told I don't look Swedish (of course, I'm naturalised), get told to wait, they leave to get someone else to check something, two immigration officers start shuffling my passport, wait while no one talks to me or acknowledge I'm there, passport stamped and I get told to "move".
Get my bags, and out of the terminal, on the walk through the terminal there's another 15-20 officers with rifles strutting around, get out of the terminal and there are two massive armoured cars from NYPD parked up front, more cops looking a bit tough.
It's an overwhelming presence of "security" everywhere, signs plastered with messages about how illegal stuff will be punished (littering, leaving your bags unattended, smoking, every message seems to say something about "under penalty of the law").
I think if you live with that all the time it's easy to filter out the noise but there's an eery feeling of oppression all around, like a boot is just waiting the right moment to stomp on you.
Maybe Sweden is different from every other country I’ve visited in Europe…but having traveled quite extensively in the EU, most countries I’ve been to don’t feel much different than the US.
Very immigration officer I’ve ever interacted with has been chilly, it’s not some uniquely American thing.
Pretty much every rail station I went through in Europe had extremely (to my eyes) heavily armed guards standing around. I was also asked to present my passport on several occasions. At one Italian station, it happed twice within a few minutes. I’ve been on multiple trains where some flavor of police comes on, checks people’s papers, and then grab some guy and escort him off at the next stop.
I don't mind the stern-looking armed security or immigration officers, it just feels different in the USA. Being chilly is different than being told to "move", I have never experienced such attitude getting into Schengen, at most it's a mostly quiet stern encounter.
It's very hard to express in text the feeling of oppression, it's not about just armed security, it's the attitude of those, it's the attitude of the people representing the State, it feels much more adversarial in the USA than anywhere I've been in Europe.
Also, it's not about being asked to present a passport but presenting a legitimate passport and being met with "you don't look Swedish".
Perhaps you are just too accustomed to the feeling of the USA, as an outsider it does feel different, and way more oppressive.
Where are you from? It's weird to me that you on the one hand defend the US in this case, but on the other DID notice all these armed guards everywhere you went in Europe. If you don't feel it's different, then I don't think you should have noticed it so much? Or if you do notice it everywhere, why would you equate the US and Europe without raising a critical stance against these kinds of policies on either side of the atlantic?
> Why the fuck are we so soft on these gutter trash in this country.
If you think it's normal to call people "gutter trash" I guess you're too far gone in some bullshit and should do some soul-searching to come back to your humanity.
If we had had those guys on 9/11 maybe they would have put a bullet on each terrorist forehead and we would all be happy these days around September.
But really it’s only like that at borders. Just watch the videos of all the foreigners loving on the USA and tearing up when they had to go back to their countries after the World Cup.
It must be nerve wracking to live in your shoes day to day. This is, probably due to flying through an airport like JFK. I'm also not sure what you mean by heavily armed agents. Most MPs at airports just have pistols on them.
Interesting you should say that, friend of mine transited through the US recently (overnight stay before a connecting flight) after having not been there for some years and described the experience as "very unnerving". Since she was messaging from inside the US she didn't want to say any more, but I'm expecting a more detailed report once she lands at the other end.
I cannot believe how tone deaf this quote is. Mind boggling. Veep, torture nexus-level parody.
> “Because you go on to X or you go on to Reddit and you go, why are people so mad at us when we've been doing the same thing for nine years?” Langley said. “And why are they so mad at us for things we don't do? And we just want people to be safe.”
I find this story to be heartwarming. I hope the employees flee to companies with missions and products more worthy of their talents.
It would be nice to think this will significantly hamper Flock and its goals and methods in any way, but it will probably just have the effect of selecting for the employees who are either true believers, or are desperate enough that they'll keep their heads down and get good work done just to keep their jobs.
Sporadic vandalism, a handful of canceled contracts, some employee morale problems, all of this falls far short of the organized campaign of resistance that would be needed to roll back Flock at this point. Flock really should be the last nail in the coffin of Edward Snowden's libertarian take that mass surveillance can be fought only with individual action and technology rather than political movements.
Over the last months I've gotten very familiar with the tech job market.
Those job postings are ghost jobs. Companies usually keep a few generic jobs online continuously like "Fullstack developer" to fish for top candidates, but there is no actual position that needs to be filled.
Or because required by law for some reasons including visa holders (assuming that’s still a thing in the US these days - fortunate not to have to know)?
My city right outside Austin scrapped it. Its even split between red and blue voters and support for abandoning flock was overwhelmingly in favor of abandoning. Makes me feel good to see others banding together for positive change in today’s political climate in the USA….even if the motivation comes from self interest (too used to “get your government hands off of my medicaid/care” deluded thinking).
> “Because you go on to X or you go on to Reddit and you go, why are people so mad at us when we've been doing the same thing for nine years?” Langley said. “And why are they so mad at us for things we don't do? And we just want people to be safe.”
I can't believe this is being said with a straight face. "We've been dumping chemicals in this river for a decade, why are people getting so mad about it now (when they are finally finding out more about it)?". Completely absurd.
Couple that with "we just want people to be safe", sorry but ignoring the abuses of the system (which they tacitly allow due to lack of safeguards) is not acceptable.
41 comments
[ 1.1 ms ] story [ 36.1 ms ] thread> And we just want people to be safe.
We’d all be safer if we were in jail (sorry to give the clown ideas)
Get to the immigration officer, answer questions, get a cold stare a few times looking at me and my passport, unpleasantly asked why do I have two passports (I'm a dual citizen), told I don't look Swedish (of course, I'm naturalised), get told to wait, they leave to get someone else to check something, two immigration officers start shuffling my passport, wait while no one talks to me or acknowledge I'm there, passport stamped and I get told to "move".
Get my bags, and out of the terminal, on the walk through the terminal there's another 15-20 officers with rifles strutting around, get out of the terminal and there are two massive armoured cars from NYPD parked up front, more cops looking a bit tough.
It's an overwhelming presence of "security" everywhere, signs plastered with messages about how illegal stuff will be punished (littering, leaving your bags unattended, smoking, every message seems to say something about "under penalty of the law").
I think if you live with that all the time it's easy to filter out the noise but there's an eery feeling of oppression all around, like a boot is just waiting the right moment to stomp on you.
Very immigration officer I’ve ever interacted with has been chilly, it’s not some uniquely American thing.
Pretty much every rail station I went through in Europe had extremely (to my eyes) heavily armed guards standing around. I was also asked to present my passport on several occasions. At one Italian station, it happed twice within a few minutes. I’ve been on multiple trains where some flavor of police comes on, checks people’s papers, and then grab some guy and escort him off at the next stop.
It's very hard to express in text the feeling of oppression, it's not about just armed security, it's the attitude of those, it's the attitude of the people representing the State, it feels much more adversarial in the USA than anywhere I've been in Europe.
Also, it's not about being asked to present a passport but presenting a legitimate passport and being met with "you don't look Swedish".
Perhaps you are just too accustomed to the feeling of the USA, as an outsider it does feel different, and way more oppressive.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49697884
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49441324
Seems normal to me.
If you think it's normal to call people "gutter trash" I guess you're too far gone in some bullshit and should do some soul-searching to come back to your humanity.
But really it’s only like that at borders. Just watch the videos of all the foreigners loving on the USA and tearing up when they had to go back to their countries after the World Cup.
Every bad thing in the US is a caricature of what caricatures were 50 years ago.
Heh. Real-world occurrence of Silicon Valley "We just want to make the world a better place" (also $billions, mainly that actually)
I cannot believe how tone deaf this quote is. Mind boggling. Veep, torture nexus-level parody.
> “Because you go on to X or you go on to Reddit and you go, why are people so mad at us when we've been doing the same thing for nine years?” Langley said. “And why are they so mad at us for things we don't do? And we just want people to be safe.”
I find this story to be heartwarming. I hope the employees flee to companies with missions and products more worthy of their talents.
Sporadic vandalism, a handful of canceled contracts, some employee morale problems, all of this falls far short of the organized campaign of resistance that would be needed to roll back Flock at this point. Flock really should be the last nail in the coffin of Edward Snowden's libertarian take that mass surveillance can be fought only with individual action and technology rather than political movements.
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety/jobs
https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/y-combinators-police-surve...
https://techfundingnews.com/275m-at-7-5-valuation-y-combinat...
https://www.ycdb.co/company/flock-safety
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/y-combinator_flock-safety-has...
https://www.inc.com/lisa-bonos/how-flock-became-the-most-con...
https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/flock-safety
I can't believe this is being said with a straight face. "We've been dumping chemicals in this river for a decade, why are people getting so mad about it now (when they are finally finding out more about it)?". Completely absurd.
Couple that with "we just want people to be safe", sorry but ignoring the abuses of the system (which they tacitly allow due to lack of safeguards) is not acceptable.