Disruptive Proactivity

I retweeted this picture, adding the note “What happens when you get technology enforced laws”, and it’s somewhere above 150 retweets as I write this. I also got back some interesting replies:

Many of the comments related to the fact that while the law was unjust, it was the law that should be challenged, not the changing enforcement of it. In the big picture, that’s absolutely true, but the big picture doesn’t help this guy. The parking law didn’t change, enforcement did.

Tower Hamlets council “supports small businesses” in principle, but would rather blindly enforce rules rather than use judgement, because judgement can carry a political price. Automated overreach has few consequences and the consequences are unpredictable.

Just because technology can do something in pursuit of a goal, it doesn’t mean it should, after all the camera has no agency.

I see the case for Tower Hamlets Council preventing illegal parking, but where enforced by automated means, all cases on the border of judgement get treated as cut and dried. There is no consideration of the case: “you did X so here’s a fine”; reason is irrelevant.

Government at any level saying “never again” to something, and enforcing by absolute means, usually ends badly for citizens. Whether local government and “illegal” parking, or must bigger issues, the technological absolute irrespective of the consequences for society rarely ends well for that society.

It’s probably too late for the print shop that’s been there for 117 years. But where will be next?