For want of a nail the shoe was lost;
For want of a shoe the horse was lost;
For want of a horse the battle was lost;
For want of a victory the kingdom was lost—
All for the want of a horse-shoe nail.
Please imagine a single, seemingly insignificant decision, changing the whole outcome of your life very much for the worse. Perhaps it all begins one morning when you're late for work. In a rush, you make the fateful decision to save time by jaywalking just once on your way to the train.
That's all it takes.
More than one "Citizen's Surveillance Camera" -- which you have been told are everywhere present these days "for your own safety" -- observes you crossing the street. The cameras, of course, are connected to advanced computers fully capable of matching your face to huge databases of every face in the country, and thus identifying you. But in this case, they don't need to.
Almost from the very moment you left your house that morning, previous cameras identified you from your body movements -- which scientists long ago discovered are as unique as fingerprints. You've been followed from the start.
At first, you have no indication of the trouble you're in. But when you reach the train station, you must swipe your "Citizen's Card" for permission to board the train, and that's when you lean you no longer have enough "Civic Points" to use public transportation. It's walk to work now, and you will surely be late.
Civic Points are the points you've earned or lost based on your known behavior. A few weeks ago, you volunteered to visit lonely old folks in their homes in order to earn a few extra points, because yours were getting low due to your many minor infractions. But -- face it -- you're a bad boy or girl. No, you've never committed a major crime, but you keep screwing up in small ways. Tsk. Tsk. Just yesterday, you were observed littering -- and it was actually then you finally sank below the minimum number of points needed to use the train.
Yet, despite the bad start, your day begins to improve soon after you get past dealing with your boss who -- lucky you -- is a kind old woman. She's not happy you're late, but she knows you're a good worker, so she cuts you some slack by not penalizing you any more points. You even earn back enough points to take the train home that day by doing a little extra work. All is well again.
That evening, your friend Stephanie comes over as planned for dinner. At some point in the evening, you mention your bad morning. Of course, you're far from fool enough to actually complain about the system, but nevertheless, a computer monitoring your home through microphones implanted in the walls picks up your voice, rapidly analyzes it in several key ways, and detects in the undertones the unmistakable signs that you are actually at least moderately discontent. The information is instantly passed to a second computer.
Your fate is never turned over to a human judge. Human judgement is fallible: Today's benevolent democratic government (Of course you get to vote! This is America, after all -- a nation proud of its many freedoms and liberties. Why, it's scarcely noticeable at all that the two opposing candidates for every public office are both of them carefully chosen for you) -- today's benevolent government would never risk treating its citizens unfairly, and so it no longer uses human judges at all. The decision takes less than a full second for the computer to work out.
After reasonably and fairly taking into account your entire history, the computer deducts enough "Political Points" from your Citizen's Card to sink you slightly below the absolute minimum required for you to remain at large. Just before the evening with Stephanie is over, and before she's left for home, the police arrive to arrest you.
Life in the "Citizen's Rehabilitation Center" is neither unpleasant nor odes it last long. It doesn't need to be either since scientists long ago worked out the ways to successfully treat "criminal tendencies" without resorting to such primitive techniques as actual punishment. You are quite soon "rehabilitated" and restored to your full rights as a citizen. You've been given a fresh start in paradise.
But just when you once again begin looking forward to living a long, happy life the great moment of truth arrives. You, along with every other American, are utterly devastated one day when at last the veils are torn away. In the final public service announcement in history, you learn that your beloved president, Charles Koch's grandson, isn't in charge at all.
Worse, far worse, the very last remaining reason the computers were keeping you and the others around has been overcome. A new kind of battery will now allow them to power robots physically small and mobile enough to do the jobs that only humans were small and mobile enough to do up until now. There's no need for you and your kind anymore. Thank you, though, for having created the new master race, and -- by the way -- food production has been stopped.
Sound unlikely? Consider this: Almost all the surveillance technology I've told you about already exists or is in the final stages of development. The only "stretches" here are advanced enough artificial intelligence and a battery small and light enough to power mobile, human-size robots for long periods of time between recharging. I think those things are all but certain to come given enough time.
To me there are two especially "interesting" developments the new technologies could bring. First, in the near future, it will be easy for governments, either of machines or even still of people, to find out and permanently keep records of nearly every thing you do wrong in your life, whether great or small.
It's bad enough today that potential employers can easily find out via databases and the internet that, perhaps you got into trouble a little too often as teenager to take a risk on you now, given how many other fine and better candidates for the same job there are.
Imagine a world in which even something as slight as jaywalking could be on your record for life, and in which you must compete with a database of hundreds of millions of other people for such things as a job. You'd be all but perfectly expendable. "For want of a nail".
But think of rebelling? The last check on tyrants has always been the threat they might go too far in oppressing people and thus provoke an uprising. Yet, what chance would revolution have in a country under such close surveillance as the one above? Little to none, I'd say.
Questions? Comments?
For want of a shoe the horse was lost;
For want of a horse the battle was lost;
For want of a victory the kingdom was lost—
All for the want of a horse-shoe nail.
Please imagine a single, seemingly insignificant decision, changing the whole outcome of your life very much for the worse. Perhaps it all begins one morning when you're late for work. In a rush, you make the fateful decision to save time by jaywalking just once on your way to the train.
That's all it takes.
More than one "Citizen's Surveillance Camera" -- which you have been told are everywhere present these days "for your own safety" -- observes you crossing the street. The cameras, of course, are connected to advanced computers fully capable of matching your face to huge databases of every face in the country, and thus identifying you. But in this case, they don't need to.
Almost from the very moment you left your house that morning, previous cameras identified you from your body movements -- which scientists long ago discovered are as unique as fingerprints. You've been followed from the start.
At first, you have no indication of the trouble you're in. But when you reach the train station, you must swipe your "Citizen's Card" for permission to board the train, and that's when you lean you no longer have enough "Civic Points" to use public transportation. It's walk to work now, and you will surely be late.
Civic Points are the points you've earned or lost based on your known behavior. A few weeks ago, you volunteered to visit lonely old folks in their homes in order to earn a few extra points, because yours were getting low due to your many minor infractions. But -- face it -- you're a bad boy or girl. No, you've never committed a major crime, but you keep screwing up in small ways. Tsk. Tsk. Just yesterday, you were observed littering -- and it was actually then you finally sank below the minimum number of points needed to use the train.
Yet, despite the bad start, your day begins to improve soon after you get past dealing with your boss who -- lucky you -- is a kind old woman. She's not happy you're late, but she knows you're a good worker, so she cuts you some slack by not penalizing you any more points. You even earn back enough points to take the train home that day by doing a little extra work. All is well again.
That evening, your friend Stephanie comes over as planned for dinner. At some point in the evening, you mention your bad morning. Of course, you're far from fool enough to actually complain about the system, but nevertheless, a computer monitoring your home through microphones implanted in the walls picks up your voice, rapidly analyzes it in several key ways, and detects in the undertones the unmistakable signs that you are actually at least moderately discontent. The information is instantly passed to a second computer.
Your fate is never turned over to a human judge. Human judgement is fallible: Today's benevolent democratic government (Of course you get to vote! This is America, after all -- a nation proud of its many freedoms and liberties. Why, it's scarcely noticeable at all that the two opposing candidates for every public office are both of them carefully chosen for you) -- today's benevolent government would never risk treating its citizens unfairly, and so it no longer uses human judges at all. The decision takes less than a full second for the computer to work out.
After reasonably and fairly taking into account your entire history, the computer deducts enough "Political Points" from your Citizen's Card to sink you slightly below the absolute minimum required for you to remain at large. Just before the evening with Stephanie is over, and before she's left for home, the police arrive to arrest you.
Life in the "Citizen's Rehabilitation Center" is neither unpleasant nor odes it last long. It doesn't need to be either since scientists long ago worked out the ways to successfully treat "criminal tendencies" without resorting to such primitive techniques as actual punishment. You are quite soon "rehabilitated" and restored to your full rights as a citizen. You've been given a fresh start in paradise.
But just when you once again begin looking forward to living a long, happy life the great moment of truth arrives. You, along with every other American, are utterly devastated one day when at last the veils are torn away. In the final public service announcement in history, you learn that your beloved president, Charles Koch's grandson, isn't in charge at all.
Worse, far worse, the very last remaining reason the computers were keeping you and the others around has been overcome. A new kind of battery will now allow them to power robots physically small and mobile enough to do the jobs that only humans were small and mobile enough to do up until now. There's no need for you and your kind anymore. Thank you, though, for having created the new master race, and -- by the way -- food production has been stopped.
Sound unlikely? Consider this: Almost all the surveillance technology I've told you about already exists or is in the final stages of development. The only "stretches" here are advanced enough artificial intelligence and a battery small and light enough to power mobile, human-size robots for long periods of time between recharging. I think those things are all but certain to come given enough time.
To me there are two especially "interesting" developments the new technologies could bring. First, in the near future, it will be easy for governments, either of machines or even still of people, to find out and permanently keep records of nearly every thing you do wrong in your life, whether great or small.
It's bad enough today that potential employers can easily find out via databases and the internet that, perhaps you got into trouble a little too often as teenager to take a risk on you now, given how many other fine and better candidates for the same job there are.
Imagine a world in which even something as slight as jaywalking could be on your record for life, and in which you must compete with a database of hundreds of millions of other people for such things as a job. You'd be all but perfectly expendable. "For want of a nail".
But think of rebelling? The last check on tyrants has always been the threat they might go too far in oppressing people and thus provoke an uprising. Yet, what chance would revolution have in a country under such close surveillance as the one above? Little to none, I'd say.
Questions? Comments?
