What if video cameras were mandatory in every motor vehicle recording every distracted driver, every intoxicated driver, every speeding driver, every oncoming car in the wrong lane, every person pulled over for a broken tail light. What if all guns were required to have video cameras recording the fate of any target?
What if video cameras were mandatory in every motor vehicle recording every distracted driver, every intoxicated driver, every speeding driver, every oncoming car in the wrong lane, every person pulled over for a broken tail light. What if all guns were required to have video cameras recording the fate of any target?
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When I was a college student in the 1970’s talk of revolution was in the air. I took an interdisciplinary course entitled Revolution and Social Change, which was team-taught by faculty from the schools of sociology, history, and political science. There was a lecture on the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, Chairman Mao’s Revolution in China, the Civil Rights movement in the Untied States and the Women’s Movement.
Then there was the lecture on technology and social change. I didn’t see that one coming. The lecturer argued that more than any other ideology, technological changes leads the way to social changes.
One of the biggest drivers of technological change, since the time of the caveman has been military advantage. Remember the scene in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film 2001 A Space Odyssey, where the apes wielding bones as clubs, chase off their unarmed rivals from a watering hole and the ape beating on a pile of bones, with scenes of animals falling and then the bone tossed skyward transformed into a space station in moon orbit. In less than a lifetime I have seen that bone transform into a GPS satellite, a drone, a smart phone. Social change is gathering in the atmosphere.
Whenever humans accidentally, or on purpose, discover some tool that provides a killing advantage, that tool generally becomes real popular, real quick.
Attempts on purpose to make bombs drop where they were intended to go, lead to all kind of technologies small enough to ride on a bomb. Enter small video cameras.
Whenever humans accidentally, or on purpose, discover some tool that provides a killing advantage, that tool generally becomes real popular, real quick.
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The internet was pioneered on purpose to alleviate the communication difficulties that Japan had, following Hiroshima. Really big bombs can take out many radio transmitting and receiving antenna. The internet can help with that.
Small video cameras are everywhere now, walking down the street, flying around on drones and snaking through blood vessels. Nobody can be sure about getting away with anything since eye-witnesses became much more reliable.
What had been done in the dark is ever more coming into the light of day and into the infra-red of the night.
Photo by Eli Christman
Definitely motor vehicles especially trucks, yes?