I'm currently reading The Sovereign Individual (1999), which predicted that the State would start to lose it's monopoly on the use of force in the Information Age. I wonder if that's what we're seeing happen here. It's a bit disturbing to think that we may be going from having a state that (in theory) offers protection to all of it's citizens to only the privileged being able to hire private security, which is virtually unaccountable to the law, at their own expense. I'm hoping that this Citizen app is just one organization that's crossing the line that is soon to be shut down, but I worry that it represents a larger trend.
Perversely this is where the equity madness leads.. in education, since they can't make everyone achieve like asian kids, they are going to eliminate programs for advanced students. Rich people will go to private schools.
In policing, since they can't figure out how to keep certain groups from committing crimes at higher rates than other groups, they're going to just stop policing. Rich people will get their own police forces.
If we want to know where we are going, we should just look at other countries with similar levels of rampant crony corruption and growing inequality. I'd say an example would be Brazil, but they actually build a lot more housing and have a stronger social safety net than the U.S., and a favela seems like a decent place to live compared to a ripped up tarp and some cardboard on the sidewalk.
I think that in most countries but the US, the state will stomp down on any such infringement hard; and in the US the state will use a much lighter and slower hand.
Every time I can think of that people have predicted (with hope or fear) the Information Age will bring about an erosion of state authority, the state's control of existing levers of power have trumped the mere ability to organize/communicate.
I sincerely hope you are reading that trash just because you want to empathize with the libertarian wing of the VC class, because it would be sad if you expected it to be the product of serious thinking.
