Didn’t know there were drones just wandering around the us. Could it have belonged to a nature photographer? Creepy af for sure

Where do you live that has surveillance drones on hiking trails?

Yeah, agree. The venn diagram of right wing people and people eager to prove their correct behavior in front of the authorities is a very depressing circle. As you say here, slow and steady. The small steps count.

Edit: Wanted to add a caveat here to clarify that I am only making fun of conservative jerks, not people who for various financial or accessibility or life reasons can’t do the things that are most usually recommended re: privacy.

I think people who say this are having a very human panic response to something that none of us should ever have to deal with and that none of us can personally control.

It has significant mental health and social effects, too. We need to start seeing these behaviors by governments and corporations the same way that we see similar actions by abusive people. Stalking and monitoring someone isn’t wrong only because a regular individual is the one doing it, it’s wrong because it’s fundamentally wrong. Such behaviors are designed to intimidate and control someone. It is absolutely unjustifiable on every level.

Clarissa-Jan Lim wrote a great article which called it ‘Panopticontent’. That phrase lives in my head forever now.

And not for the better. I think people are actually much less kind to each other when they are aware of being observed. Or worse, deliberately performing for content.