this is a quick post. but I think it’s really interesting. the Atlantic has a piece on “Why Hong Kongers Are Toppling Lampposts“. This is an instance of the negatives of smart cities. The poles perhaps have technology to monitor traffic and whatnot (it’s not clear that all the poles have it). But protesters are worried that the poles have facial recognition technology (like the technology used in the Mainland). As such, they went for a very low tech way to fight back: cut it down and smash it.