What You Can't Say (2004)

Re:What You Can't Say (2004) by Mathnerd314 on Sunday October 13, 2019 @01:09AM (#21238493)

Violence seems to be an innate animal tendency, of course a system to counteract it would be extreme. I suppose such a system would not necessarily be violent, e.g. drones equipped with tasers are mostly nonlethal. And since people react to alarm clocks in the morning perhaps all that's needed are drones with loudspeakers ordering people around. But since it's a thought experiment I went for the zapper.

I was thinking of an objective definition of violence like causing death or serious injury. The death penalty is rarely used in most countries and seems unlikely to significantly contribute to overall violence statistics, compared to police shootings or natural disputes. The Hiroshima bomb is debatable as it might have caused more radiation deaths than an invasion from Japan would have. But a total surveillance system would not obviously cause any more deaths and could be used to prevent them.

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Re:What You Can't Say (2004) by trashtester on Monday October 14, 2019 @02:19AM (#21245659)

Even if you are toning down your proposal, you still seem to argue for something that resembles an extreme police state.

Strip away the sci fi terminology, replace the space lasers with police armed with sniper rifles, and replace the tasers with batons, and you have technologies that are available today (except for the surveillance needed to identify the offenders, but for that part, you could have the super-AI needed foor the task feed informatino to the police instead of to satelites/drones.)

While efficient law enforcement is important, "perfect" law enforcement is likely to cause more harm than it will prevent.

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