I got a (simultaneously horrifying and amusing) news item in the latest U.S. Pirate Party newsletter, about a new program in Cleveland to monitor recyclable bins with RFID chips (“Privacy Trashed,” August 24).
“This whole ‘chipping’ of garbage cans began in England and now it is spreading to our shores. Basically, they’re using RFID (radio frequency indentification) chips to ensure that people are recycling. The chips monitor how many times a recyclable container is brought to the curb. If you haven’t brought out your recycle bin in awhile, expect to have your trash rooted through.”
This is just another example of the utter stupidity of the typical lawmaker’s mindset. It’s like it literally never occurred to them that people might try to circumvent laws.
A good example is the sign on the gas pump: “The penalty for stealing gas is loss of your driver’s license. If you steal gas, this could be the last time you drive.” So I’m not afraid to steal gas — but I’m TERRIFIED of driving without a license. Do these Barney Fifes even think, or do they just assume that passing “a law” on paper will have some magical effect on reality?
Any kid who ever squeezed the toothpaste tube and wet his toothbrush to look like he’d brushed his teeth could figure out how to thwart Cleveland’s idiotic recycling program.
I believe strongly in recycling, and normally separate all my recyclables into the bin. But if this RFID program were implemented where I live, I’d STOP recycling. I’d just carry the empty bin out to the curb and bring it back once a week to fool Big Brother, and then I’d cram the trash cans with recyclables.
I recall a similar high-tech handwashing verification system in the news about ten years ago, that used embedded chips in name badges to check if employees had gone near the sink or turned on the water after using the toilet. As with the recyclable bin, any kid who ever faked brushing his teeth could easily thwart this. And even though I’m normally quite fastidious about washing my hands, I’d be sorely tempted to whiz on them and fake a handwash just to prove to myself that management’s smug confidence in their own authority over me was unwarranted.
As it is, I frequently leave notes on those “Employees Must Wash Hands” signs: “How do you plan to enforce this?” My goal is not only to undermine the authority of anonymous sign writers in the eyes of the public, but to make management look ridiculous and ineffectual in the eyes of workers and get them thinking in general terms about how much of management’s authority is unenforceable. And if I can make management paranoid that their authority’s held in contempt, I’ve hit the trifecta.
This is one of the ways that authoritarianism, and statism in particular, defeats itself. It really seems never to have occurred to these smothering schoolmarms that there’s a nontrivial minority of the population (and I’m one of them) that takes such intrusive attempts at micromanagement, and our would-be overseers’ smug confidence in their own authority, as a challenge. People like me make it our mission in life to prove that “you’re not the boss of me.” And offensive enforcement measures like RFID chipping recyclables bins will be guaranteed to provoke the behavior they’re trying to discourage.
It’s really comical just how clueless they are about the counterproductivity of such heavy-handedness. Take, for example, the anti-drunk driving PSAs put out by the Arkansas State Police: “If you drink and drive, you WILL get caught, and you WILL go to jail.” Even the most dull-wittedly obedient citizen out there will immediately discern that such an extreme assertion of their enforcement capabilities is a bald-faced lie. Just about anyone who drinks at all can probably recall — even if they don’t want to admit it — more than one case where they got behind the wheel with blood alcohol that was technically over the limit, even if it was only after two or three beers, and DIDN’T get caught. Assertions of enforcement capability and threats of punishment that clearly can’t be backed up seem almost calculated to bring the state into contempt.
In other words, they done goofed — and the consequences will never be the same. Sometimes it’s almost as if Matrix reality has commercials for red pills embedded in it. The beauty of it is, the Matrix generates its own glitches.
Citations to this article:
- Kevin Carson, Authoritarianism is Self-Defeating, The Snohomish Times, 29 Aug 2010
On a similar note, the household recycling system isn't working too well in my town. We are supposed to use blue plastic bags for our recyclables, but I cannot find a reliable supply of reasonably sized bags.
I thought of calling the city government and telling them that this inconvenience is going to stop me from recycling — then I remembered that recycling is mandatory and I'd essentially be turning my self in. So, I said "whatever".
I'm not sure there's a good way to rephrase it without being perceived as insulting (like Markov Chaney's "No Smoking or Spitting — The Mgt.").
But "Thanks for washing your hands" is the best way I can think of that might persuade people who are on the fence without provoking defiance from the people who were already washing up.
"Our business, and your job, depends on good hygiene. Please remember to wash your hands"
Incidentally, whilst I stand to be corrected, I don’t believe that any council in England has actually implemented the RFID thing on bins (trash cans). Certainly they’ve been rolling out bins either with space to retrofit a chip or perhaps even with chips in them already, but I don’t think they’ve actually got round to monitoring that way.
There have been instances of councils rooting through people’s rubbish at the crack of dawn supposedly to get an “anonymised” picture of what people are or are not recycling. And certainly there are council who will issue fines and so on if their personnel find regular bins filled with recyclables, but for once, I think the real Big Bin Brother implementations are starting your side of the pond!
bryan: I share your enjoyment of creative vandalism, but I've worked in enough shitty service jobs myself that I'd probably draw the line at making things unplesant for the grunts actually picking up the trash.
BTW, how would you rephrase the “employees must wash hands sign”? It is a good ideas to remind food handlers of the importance of washing their hands after using the bathroom.
“In other words, they done goofed — and the consequences will never be the same.”
One hundred Internet Points to Gryffindor!
Quite amusing…a few pointers from me…
ALWAYS empty the “poo bucket” from your cat and dogs…on top of the bag…that is on top of the can.
If needed, mix in “poo bucket” contents in with beer and liqueur bottles and cans.
And finally if you have an elderly relative who uses “pads”…line bags with these before putting into common trash.
One other thing, I came to the LP through the GP. I’m all over recycling. But I have a long standing “problem with authority”.
If I purchase a 6,12, or 24 pack of beer, the box is my property. The bottles or cans within the box is my property. The fluid within the cans or bottles is my property…at least temporarily.
It is my option to “save” these items, use them in any number of ways (the bottom half of beer cans are excellent for plant germination), or I may dispose of them. My property…My choice…
Government needs to get a grip.
The handwashing thing – when I see that sign in a restaurant, I like to graffiti it. Right under “Employees must wash hands” I write “Visitors can go away yucky.”
So *that’s* who’s responsible for all the graffiti on those hand-washing signs all over the southeastern US.
An RFID-chipped bin wouldn’t stop me from separating recyclables, because I too believe it’s a good thing to do. You can be damn sure, though, that I’d locate that chip and take a power drill to it—and if anyone were to decide that they wanted to dig through my trash can because my recycling bin hadn’t checked in for a while, they would get to enjoy the contents of the litter box dispersed through the trash daily instead of contained in its own little bag.
Conclusion: microchipped bin == happier kitty.
I’ll tell you one sign I find annoying:-
Who are “we”, who don’t even have the courtesy to identify yourself? I’ll bet you are a software feature yourself. And whoever you are, you don’t need any such thing. The readers and contributors, now, they would certainly find it convenient to stop trolling – but it’s speciesist to let humans post twaddle. That is, while it’s cost effective to stop automated postings, the principle involved is not “We need to make sure you are a human”.
Seriously? I lived in Cleveland until about a year ago, and there was no recycling pick-up service at my house. I had to let the paper and the bottles pile up for several months, then drive them to the nearest recycling facility. My rommate just threw the recycling in the trash.
If they wish me to sort my own rubbish,then i expect them to pay me for my time,if recycling was such a great idea and save money then they can sort it themselves and sell those recycled item’s at a profit,but they want us to do the hard work and for them to be paid twice.
That said i do my own recycling,and then sell the metals,plus my neighbours if they let me.
There is in the UK,certain area’s that some council’s that do not recycle,and they dump everything in landfill,even after the public sorted their rubbish.
William: The best arrangement I ever encountered was in the nearby town of Lowell. They charged by the bag for regular trash pickup, and then provided free recycling bins. By separating out recyclables and composting food waste, I could get by on two garbage bags a month, which saved me a lot of money. Ironically, it’s market-based pricing systems like this that provoke the most ire from residents with a sense of entitlement. They tried a similar program in the much larger town of Fayetteville, and the newspaper letters page was full of outraged complaints that the baseline number of free bags (104/year) “wasn’t enough,” and that it “wasn’t fair” to charge for bags over this amount. But I noticed that on trash day there was a huge number of houses with no recycling bin out, and with six or eight bags on the curb that they’d made no effort at all to get more than half full. It’s shitheads like that who think they’re entitled to have the USGov fighting constant wars in the Middle East to guarantee cheap gas for their SUVs.
>In other words, they done goofed — and the consequences will never be the same.
/b/tards? In my C4SS?
Well, *you're* the one who uses the pseudonym "Anonymous."
Seriously, I think the "done goofed" meme's spread way beyond the boundaries of 4chan.