>Imagine the uproar if flock were used for automatic speeding tickets.

Imagine how much HN would be defending them if they started with speed cameras or something else that could be contrived as beneficial and kinda pandered to the whims of the demographics and then moved to 1984 rather than just going straight from zero to 1984.

The whole discussion would be framed as "these are critical safety infrastructure, besides they have strict controls around access and you have no privacy when driving a 2-ton death machine" and they could literally be doing facial recognition on pedestrians and tracking cyclists for years and years and years and it would take an insane mountain of beyond undeniable evidince to change the narrative of the discussion. Because once a bias prone vote base community picks a side, it's basically impossible to change. Welcome to modern discourse.