TBH I am sick to death of this website and am therefore clearing this comment. Apologies to the commentor responding below - I posted a response to your comment in a previous edit of this comment. Somebody please invite me to the land of crustaceans.
> the Indian food in Britain is the best in the world
Got about a billion people here who'd like to disagree. In fact, of all the crimes against humanity the British visited on India, I think that assertion might just be the worst.
I find a lot of Americans display a belief that 'democracy' can only refer to a direct democracy and 'republic' is the accurate term to refer to representational democracies, but with the implication often being that the point of representative democracy (vs direct democracy) is primarily to prevent majoritarianism or 'mob rule'. None of that meshes with my knowledge of political science gleaned from education in my home country (parliamentary system) or in the United States, so I really wonder where this idea began.
As per my knowledge, representative democracies have an advantage over direct democracies primarily in ease of administration and legislation. I don't think there are any particularly strong reasons to suggest representative democracy is less prone to a tyranny of the majority than a direct democracy.
My hypothesis is that the idea is borne out of a necessity to resolve the dissonance between the US founders and constitution being in many ways anti-democratic, with a culture that holds up democracy & freedom as its highest ideals. (democracy in this case defined as it would be in the dictionary)
It's amazing how many people have swallowed the line that stopping anthropogenic global warming is mostly about individual choices when there is clear evidence to show that the very same idea has been propagated primarily by the industries responsible for the majority of pollution.
I don't know about whether this is an accurate summation of the source material, but the source material is a pretty good definition of fascism (Umberto Eco's writing on ur-fascism)
I don't live in the US either. But this website is primarily US-focused, and most people on it readily assume the context for everything is the US, so I conform to the same habit.
My anecdotal examples would be mostly middle-class families and college students in the US, not particularly valley-related. In my country these type of devices are on the market but not popular (only seen a couple), but they're priced out of the range of the majority of the population anyway.
Most of the devices have a switch for the microphone that is supposedly implemented in hardware rather than software. And the vast majority of smart home devices do not have cameras.
Granted, the ease of use of their functionality is largely dependent on the microphone being on at all times.
IMO the GP is being downvoted because irrespective of one's personal feelings regarding 'smart home' devices, it's difficult to see how someone could genuinely have never encountered any users of those devices (assuming you're living in the US). I can understand how someone extremely tech-savvy and cognizant of the privacy and other downsides of those devices may have friends who similarly would not use or purchase the same; but to have genuinely never seen one, whether it be in the home of a relative, an acquaintance, in popular television or movies - and having never read any reporting about their popularity - seems beyond the realm of possibility. Given that, the GP's question seems conceited. I can see how they might have intended to direct the question towards HN users in the assumption that most HN users would be wary of the aforementioned devices, in which case it'd be interesting to read the perspectives of those individuals who use them despite their downsides. But that isn't immediately evident.
I would say between 10-20 of my friends have some variety of smart home device? Most are Alexa, with a few Google Homes. They span the spectrum from tech-savvy to the opposite.
Perhaps you could do some research on the amount of time it will take to count mail in ballots and the relative difference between likelihood of mail-in voting for both parties.
Or maybe your superficial response is correct, and there is nothing exceptional about this election, and COVID-19 will no longer be a concern, tomorrow?