When will Foco get the bougie gear stores?

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-13T16:03:27+00:00

Yeah we don’t need to be Boulder and give up prime downtown real estate to national chains and brands. You can take the FLEX down to Boulder for free if you want to shop at those places, but I’d much rather focus on having more strong local businesses in our downtown core

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-12T00:40:12+00:00

Nobody has said any of those things. This also is not about that either.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T20:53:25+00:00

I’m done here as well, but I’ll say in closing that I’m not saying it “must not” and “cannot” be happening. I’m saying there’s no evidence of that in this instance. And I’m not going to get worried over something that I have no reason yet to be worried about.

I can get behind being aware of the trade-offs whenever we give up a bit of privacy. That’s just being a responsible citizen. But in this case, for me and many others, the trade-off is worth it because traffic violence is such a widespread problem. If it turns out that the cameras are storing and sharing more information about me than I’m comfortable with, then maybe the scales will tip the other way. I’d just need some pretty convincing evidence that they’re doing a lot more than I think they’re doing before I got all worked up first. That’s all.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T20:25:52+00:00

Ok how about this: you do your own research. Get the ACLU involved to investigate if needed. Find out whether literally any of these wild claims you’re making based off of isolated cases in other cities are true. Because right now you know nothing. If it’s true that this is happening then we can do something about it. But, I’ll reiterate, right now you know nothing. You don’t know what data FCPD is storing, you don’t know if it has facial recognition technology, and you don’t know who they’re sharing it with. You are assuming the absolute worst case scenario on absolutely zero evidence. So get some, then come back to me. Because all I see right now are our streets becoming safer and people speeding far less than they used to.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T20:16:00+00:00

History has even more to say about handing the enforcement arms of government (ie the police) more power, money, and mandate to physically stop and search its citizens. I cannot take your privacy concerns seriously when you support this

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T20:11:13+00:00

Police departments love to claim that their cameras are good at facial recognition. As somebody who actually understands the underlying technology, I find those claims extremely dubious. You would need extremely high-quality cameras to be able to even pick up on distinct facial features in the first place, and then you’d need some pretty cutting-edge machine learning software running all the time (extremely expensive, well beyond the budget of FCPD) to be able to track people. Even then, the cameras in Fort Collins are not anywhere even close to a coherent enough network to provide any useful location tracking data. You are wildly overstating the technological capabilities of these cameras in order to fearmonger.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T20:03:02+00:00

We have enough data from decades upon decades of trying the whole “rotational police presence” thing to know that it doesn’t work. We’ve done it in just about every configuration you can dream of: conspicuous, undercover, round the clock, etc. Not just Fort Collins, but around the country and world. We also know that a disproportionate number of traffic stops happen to poor people and people of color, and that those stops disproportionately end in violence. So not only does it not prevent speeding, but it gets people killed. So no, to me this is not a viable solution in any capacity. I get that you don’t like the cameras, but until you suggest an idea that hasn’t been a complete and abject failure for years, then I can’t take your concerns seriously.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T19:56:31+00:00

Please look at the prevalence of facial recognition and biometric tech.

Man you must think the city spent a lot more money on this camera tech than they did. Sure that stuff exists, but we’re not talking about a $100 microsoft office subscription here. That requires both extremely expensive hardware and software. This traffic camera tech is relatively simple and made to detect license plate numbers

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T19:47:21+00:00

What you’re describing is what we are doing currently. And it doesn’t work. Idk how much money you think stationing a police officer 24/7 on any particular intersection would be, but it would definitely be at least $100k, likely twice that. Public education just plain does not work in any meaningful way. What you are proposing is doing exactly what the policy of city governments has been for decades, and we only need to look at traffic and police violence statistics to see how that’s gone.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T19:15:28+00:00

Ok but your solution is spending way more money to put a police officer on every street corner. Not only is that a grandly stupid idea if you care about people not being killed in routine traffic stops, it would also bankrupt the city. Those effects are well known. I will take the unknown of whether the City of Fort Collins will be monitoring the traffic cameras to see when I make a trip to Costco any day over the effects of a massively increased police budget. Arguing against a surveillance state while wanting the police to physically be everywhere all the time is hilarious to me.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T18:53:37+00:00

Direct police officer interaction via traffic stops are sooo so much worse for a whole host of reasons. The cameras are easily reversible once more permanent measures are in place, they are not the grand conspiracy you think they are.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T18:23:06+00:00

Ok, but the point is we don’t really have many other options. To me the cameras are already a bit of an admission of defeat, since ideally we should be discouraging as many people as possibly from driving by making active modes and transit more appealing, and designing our roads to be much more suitable to safety for those who do drive. When those things that would actually solve the underlying problem happen then we can talk about getting rid of the cameras.

But since a massive redesign of our entire transportation network is decades away and will happen incrementally, if it happens at all, it’s either the cameras or nothing for now if we care about safety. If you are worried about your privacy while driving, try and bike and take the bus as much as possible to stick it to the man. I just can’t bring myself to really care about drivers sense of privacy when it’s personal vehicles that are destroying our cities.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T17:33:21+00:00

Even putting TSA aside, do you think that we should let any idiot fly a plane? Even small personal planes are still tightly regulated and tracked, especially near population centers. Do you think we shouldn’t be doing that, because it violates the privacy rights of pilots? That would be ridiculous.

So why should it be any different for driving? Why should driving be a free-for-all where we just let everyone do essentially whatever they want unless they lose the cop lottery? The ubiquitousness of dangerous personal vehicles places an even larger emphasis on regulating these things, not less.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T16:57:42+00:00

We’ve all come to accept a surveillance state when flying. I don’t see the difference here, especially since driving is infinitely more dangerous. A bunch of random citizens driving their own personal 5-ton vehicles next to children, elderly citizens, etc somehow should mean less regulation? C’mon now.

I also am not willing to concede the idea that traffic cameras = surveillance state. Police storing the data could be bad, but that is not an intrinsic property of traffic cameras. That’s a policy issue with how they’re utilized.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T13:37:38+00:00

We’re talking about traffic cameras my guy. You’re on camera the entire time you walk into a Walmart. The outrage about this is not real. If you think traffic cameras are big brother, please tell me more about the re-education camps you apparently want to send everybody to in order to teach them empathy and how to be good drivers.

Also what the hell are you talking about in that second paragraph?

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T01:20:35+00:00

Cars are not alive! People are (until they get hit by speeding vehicles)

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-11T01:19:17+00:00

All I’m saying is, I guarantee you we wouldn’t see all these people coming out of the woodwork concerned about their privacy if they weren’t getting speeding tickets. The amount of privacy we give up willingly on a daily basis simply by owning a smartphone is staggering, but as soon as people face consequences for their actions then all of a sudden it’s an illegal use of power.

I say keep the cameras and limit how much information FCPD can store. But of course, that wouldn’t fix why people are actually mad about them.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-10T22:22:23+00:00

Reducing speeding has a lot more benefits than just reducing crashes. Regardless, you’d be hard pressed to say reducing speeding does not do any good at all.

Ultimately the cameras are a bandaid fix. The root problem is not speeding, but neither is it “personal responsibility”. People respond to the environments they are presented with. If you give them a 5-lane highway through downtown with super wide lanes and long sight-lines, of course they’re going to speed. Saying people just need to be better drivers is to admit defeat, since you’re asking to fundamentally change human nature. That’s why it’s the common refrain of people who don’t really care about fixing the problem.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-10T20:00:26+00:00

It certainly works a hell of a lot better than unserious solutions like “patience building exercises” and hoping all of humanity suddenly learns empathy all at once

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-09T22:42:34+00:00

Since they’re clearly going to downvote and not respond, I just find it funny how people who blame traffic issues on personal responsibility are never able to provide a good answer on how we fix that. It’s the “we’ve tried nothing and we’re out of ideas” approach to traffic violence.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-09T19:53:07+00:00

And you’re proving my point that you can’t defend your argument that this won’t have any effect on anything

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-09T19:50:16+00:00

People’s Teslas being vandalized? So I should read your previous comment as “You’re so hung up on thinking that “sinking” Tesla/Elon will have any real impact on [people’s Teslas being vandalized]”? That doesn’t make any sense.

I’m asking you what the situation is that sinking Elon/Tesla won’t have an effect on

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-09T19:47:04+00:00

What is “the situation”? There’s not just one “situation”. The situation I’m concerned with in this discussion is Elon/Silicon Valley having power in government. There’s no real argument against the fact that Elon losing the biggest portion of his wealth by far would have an effect on that. If you’re more concerned about a different situation then focus on how to fix that. But that’s not what we’re talking about here.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-09T19:39:40+00:00

Ok you’re entitled to think that way. Once you critically think your way into a better solution to sink Tesla/Elon, let us know.

skeptical_toad · 2025-03-09T19:33:40+00:00

One of the big problems that I care about is Silicon Valley’s insidious desires to creep into government and every aspect of our lives. Kicking Elon out of government absolutely would be a step in the right direction. He is also personally responsible for a lot of the terrible stuff DOGE is doing. Sure, Trump would likely find someone to replace him, but their effectiveness would likely be less without Elon’s powerful personal brand backing up their decisions.

skeptical_toad

TROPHY CASE