Eyes up, buttercup

As I walk the not so mean streets of Guangzhou back home in China, I noticed many a building - public and private - being guarded by security. Not sure why that is actually needed because due to the massive video surveillance apparatus in China, nobody is stupid enough to commit physical crimes. But hey, who am I to get in the way of job creation, even if said jobs are kind of meaningless.

What does look wrong is that most of these security guards are staring at their phones! A clear indication that their jobs are of zero consequence. Any worthy criminal would easily pass on by without them noticing.

If I were leadership walking by I would immediately take these building security guards to task. Even if the whole charade is just for show, you still got to make it look convincing. The person responsible for safeguarding an area should absolutely be barred from doing anything but have constant awareness of their surroundings. You’d better know immediately if so much as bird lands on a second story window sill. Perhaps more importantly: you’re not getting paid to watch Douyin videos.

Imagine if the guards at Buckingham Palace - surely purely for ceremony, were staring at the phones, instead of standing at absolute attention. Right to the Australian penal colony, right away.

I would say the same for hired security at American malls. I’ve seen too many guards at our local Target store busy with their phones, rather than paying attention. This is not and should not be acceptable in any country on this planet.

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Coming through.

Pure security theatre

I like to complain about the security theatre here in the States, but practically speaking it’s a necessary evil. When the founding contract of the country stipulates the right to own firearms, you must and can only do the best to mitigate the downsides. Unless the second amendment goes away - never, at least not in our lifetime, security screenings before being allowed into venues is just part of life in America.

Surprisingly there’s even more stringent security theatre in China. Can you imagine needing to pass a detector and bag search before getting into a subway station? That’s normal everyday life in China. Perhaps there was a time when this was necessary. But the modern Chinese cities are so heavily surveilled that no one would be stupid enough to commit any physical crimes. (Word on the street is online scams are where the crime is concentrated.)

Never mind the fact civilian gun ownership is absolutely verboten.

With crime practically non existent, why then remain the security theatre? Even if the government is worried about explosive devices, money is so thoroughly digital in China - WeChat pay and AliPay is ubiquitous - that it should be laughably easy to find exactly who purchased the bomb-making ingredients. The citizenry cannot throw away a piece of trash without the government being able to tell exactly which trashcan it is.

There’s got to be a point where the crime deterrence apparatus has been so pervasive for so long that the mere idea of it is enough. The government can then scale back the stuff that merely adds on inconvenience.

But hey, as a government employee myself, I can appreciate the amount of jobs the security theatre creates. It’s rather cushy to sit beneath an air conditioning vent looking at bags all day. Especially for those who did not pass the highly competitive Chinese university entrance exams.

A cup makes the problems disappear.

Be smug about it

The ongoing TSA meltdown is mighty interesting to see. Thanks to our incompetent United States Congress, TSA agents have been missing paychecks for a few weeks now, with no end in sight. No one would work for free willingly, right? (Unwillingly is what they used to refer to as slavery.) So agents have been calling out sick en masse. This has lead to massive lines at major airports.

Imagining needing three hours just to get through the TSA checkpoint. For someone like me who hates to cut things that close in terms of getting to the airpot last minute, I’d plan to arrive at the airport something like six hours before departure, in the current situation, in order to feel at ease. Even the British would scoff at waiting in a queue for that long.

Thankfully my local airport -SFO - has TSA workers under contract by a private company. They are not affected by the ongoing partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. They weren’t affected last year when the government shutdown for a record 40 some odd days. How did we get so lucky? The local powers at be must have been a libertarian: the more you can remove government from a responsibility, the better.

Whatever the case may be, I was super appreciative of the normal operation at SFO when I flew to China a few days back. My smugness is through the roof when I now read the news of queuing chaos at other airports in the country. What I feel most worse for is the TSA agents that actually did show up to work, despite the continuing lack of pay. No shade to those that didn’t - again, no one should work for free, but the reality is the workload remains the same, and there’s way fewer people to execute it.

Wait a minute - isn’t that what “big AI” is doing in reality? Promise big efficiency so companies can lay off workers, but those left behind are actually still doing the same amount of work.

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Feeding time.

Paul Blart, library cop

Every time I’ve walked by the local public library lately, I’ve noticed a security guard out front. I guess that’s a permanent fixture now? What a sad commentary on the state of things here in the Bay Area, that even a freaking library needs someone menacing to stand at the entrance. Let me guess: teenagers were doing wayward things inside the library during the afternoon hours. I can’t imagine anyone would actually rob a library. Used books on the secondary market aren’t that lucrative.

The local mall not only has its own security guards, but some of the shops inside - the ones with highly prized merchandise - feature their own security detail at the entrances. (Yo dawg, I heard you like mall cops…) This is a fantastic situation for rent-a-cop businesses: look at all the jobs being created! But for the patronizing public (read: me) it’s a jarring reminder of the reasons these security people have proliferated. We’ve seen the videos: the concerted looting, and rowdy teens (respectively or not).

Target closed down its self-checkout aisle because too many folks were scanning and leaving without paying. We really cannot have nice things around here. The utter tyranny of the minority of people breaking the law, and ruining the entire experience for the rest of us.

We laugh at China for being a policed state, with cameras everywhere. Have anybody noticed the we - at least in the San Francisco Bay Area - are getting there as well? I mean, at least here it’s not government sponsored! There’s private security guards at stores (and public libraries, apparently), and there’s private security cameras outside homes, businesses, and inside public transportation. We’re are absolutely being surveilled whenever we go outside. A price worth paying for being safe?

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But does it work?

We can have nice things

The APEC summit is happening this week in San Francisco. Honestly, I’ve never heard of APEC until I started to see news of street closures and movement restrictions a few weeks back. Of course, when world leaders representing nearly half of the world’s economic output come together, security is of utmost importance. Especially in a country - the United States of America - where the second amendment exists. If the locals who live and work here are inconvenienced, so be it. Literally the price of doing business.

I sure hope the supposed increase in local spending from all the foreign visitors is worth it!

Because I am sure San Francisco is spending a significant sum in hosting, and its various logistics (Federal government is chipping in, surely). I was surprised to read the organizers literally built a 14-foot high security fence surrounding the Moscone Center area. Access is highly controlled and monitored, no doubt. (Who says we can’t built walls here in America?) Entire subway tunnels are shut down for the duration of the event. Freeway exits near the conference area are blocked, and entire lane of the Bay Bridge is closed to normal traffic.

There’s apparently a 30-mile no-fly radius - commercial aircraft excepted. Leisure guy flying his recreational Cessna better stay away, lest he wants fighter jets for company.

Another surprising thing is seeing the city actually enforcing laws! Sidewalk homeless encampments getting cleared out, and illegal street vending stopped. I bet the tacitly-allowed drug trade in the Tenderloin is also put to a pause. The Department of Public Works must’ve worked overtime to clean the downtown area. I love how shambolic it is that San Francisco only (literally) clean its act up when cameras and eyes from the outside world are upon it. Count me as one of the locals asking: why can’t we have this year round, all the time?

I wish APEC a successful summit in this city of ours. It’s wild to think I will be in the same 7-by-7 mile piece of land as Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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The jade dragon.