We're all benefactors of this process. We're having this exchange on the Internet, with people all around the world. We use ATMs, escalators.

Check out this video by Hugh Herr about bionics and watch how artificial limbs give people dignity and freedom and joy: https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_the_new_bionics_that_let...

I don't get all the hate for Minority Report. If we ever had the capabilities their society had, we could structure our justice system in a vastly different way. If we know a violent crime was going to happen weeks before it actually did, crisis units could intervene. Jails would only be needed for those who could never change. Suicides would be a thing of the past. Police officers would drop a "shoot first" policy, and end many of the abuses we have today. Everyone would be better off.

Minority report's mistake is to assume we'll use old-fashioned police with new tech. But new technology allows us to change society in unimaginable ways.

There are incredible technologies to predict crime now. The problem is that they require the government to collect huge amounts of information on people to inform the predictions.

That's a trade-off that a lot of people are uncomfortable with, because sometimes the technology gets it wrong. And innocent people end up on the no-fly list, arrested, tracked, etc. Or worse, the system confuses political activism with actual criminality, and ends up protecting the status quo instead of just enforcing the law.

I haven't seen Minority Report for a while, but I remember that being a big theme in that movie as well. Wasn't that the dilemma faced by Cruise's character? Go to jail to protect the system, or stand up and admit it is flawed.

We don't have the technology to say "X will commit Y at place Z at time T". We have the technology to say "Person X is somewhat likely to be a terrorist based on known data". That's an important distinction - they only let traditional police do their jobs in a smarter way, not end their job as we know it.

Said someone who has Star Trek referenced in their nickname... Not every sci-fi vision is a dystopia.

Isn't Star Trek about everyone basically working for the government (ie, in the military)?

No; Star Trek focuses on the "military" branch (Starfleet), but the majority of the population of United Federation of Planets are civilians.

I stand corrected. Picard's home comes to mind.

There has never been an attempt at a television series depicting Star Trek outisde Starfleet, correct? I mean, something created by the makers of Star Trek.

I don't know of any. Deep Space Nine came the closest, especially before the Dominion War arc. While the station itself was commanded by a Starfleet officer, it was still a sovereign Bajoran territory and most of the inhabitants were civilians.

Well, everyone apparently works for free under the Roddenberry vision, so figure that one out. Presumably if corporations aren't controlling things like the Federation database, it would seem likely a significant portion of all real development is going straight to the government though, yeah.

Oh, the Federation, where the world isn't run by corporations? Yeah, Google is not working on that future.

Google is working on turning sci-fi technology into reality, not sci-fi politics. In the absence of a Third World War, a warp flight and subsequent first contact with the Vulcans, leveraging existing economy seems to be the best strategy for that.