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[Paul Eres]

I wasn't arguing that increasing technology always reduces crime. I was arguing for two unrelated points:

- Crime has gone down as long as we've been keeping statistics.

- Technology can be used to reduce crime, and many crimes have been prevented because of technology.

The two aren't necessarily connected, but both are true.

[Pacian]

Your argument method back there was to make up something ridiculous, show how it wouldn't prevent crime, and then equate all other things with that ridiculous thing -- which isn't a good method of argument.

Okay, that makes me say, "Hey!"

Let's go back to basics.  Your example was an object that someone would own and that would prevent them from doing illegal things with it.  I said that I didn't want somebody to decide in the factory settings what I could and couldn't do with something I owned.  I didn't want to give them that level of control over me.  What else might they do with that control?  Your counter was that there would be no need for control, people would voluntarily want to own these objects because who wouldn't want to own a car that couldn't kill anyone?

To me, sorry, but that's the ridiculous example.  Most pieces of technology that we can use to commit crime will have obvious plus sides to using them illegally - eg. Fred shoots Jack and takes his money (the plus side to using the gun legally being, as you point out above, that Jack might shoot Fred first).  Should Fred and Jack be able to decide how to use their guns, even though Fred intends to use his with malice (or play Russian roulette with it, or shoot an apple off his son's head, or something else dangerous and undesirable)?  Or should we expect them both to buy a gun that wouldn't fire at humans?

Jack might buy one, because he's into target shooting, but without execessive control from above, Fred never would.  If he did, he wouldn't be able to shoot people and take their money.  Therefore, this kind of technology would either have to be strictly enforced, or it simply would not work.  Perhaps what I should have asked was, "Who wouldn't buy a drill that wouldn't let you drill through locks?"  The answer is, of course, burglars.  Or people who lock themselves out.

If you'd just said, "People will buy stronger locks which will make burglary more difficult," I wouldn't even have posted in this thread.  But that's not the example you used, or the way you described it being adopted.

[Paul Eres]

We were talking specifically about the car example, though. Obviously creating an object which will prevent crime is not the only way technology prevents crime, and obviously it wouldn't work for every type of crime, the safe cars / drunk driving example was just illustrative, not comprehensive. Other forms of crime could be preventing in other ways. Murders could be prevented not by making it illegal to own objects which can kill people, but by reducing the motivation to kill and increasing the self-defensive capabilities of the people being killed.

As an illustration, imagine it's 2100, and we have self-repairing nanotechnological machines circulating in our blood which repair any damage done to us. It would then be *much harder* to kill someone. You couldn't shoot them cause their body would just repair the damage. You couldn't poison them because their nanotech machines would just neutralize the poison. It'd be nearly impossible to kill someone without special equipment and a lot of trouble. It'd still be possible, large explosives would still work, nuclear bombs would still work, but it'd be much harder to do than it is today.

Also in 2100, there would be artificially intelligent programs protecting you: you could have a program which combs all the information you have available to you and alerts you when there is a danger to your life. For instance, the AI could detect that there's someone 50 feet from you with high explosives. Knowing that, you could take steps to make sure that they don't get anywhere near you. That's another way to prevent murder through technology.

Both of those, alone or in combination, would be a much better way to prevent murder through technology than creating guns which don't fire at people.

[jeb]

back on topic...

It should be obvious to anyone these movies are garbage. Over the past few weeks, the vast majority of the banking sector of the western world has been nationalised.

Based on this, why would world leaders need to engage in impossibly complex clandestine, when they can just openly declare "right. shut up, we're in fucking charge here" and take over.

Ooh... but it's interesting garbage! That's why I posted it here. Not because I believe everything they say, but because it challenges things we take for granted.

[Don Andy]

It's like science-fiction movies. You know it's not true, but it very well could be :D

[Matt Thorson]

Why would crime be something which is always the same no matter what happens?

Interesting fact: There's a certain species of scorpion where the males bring flowers to the females, and then the females choose whether to mate with them based on the flower.  A certain (constant) percentage of males go out and do the work to find the flower and bring it to the female.  The rest find a male who has just found a flower and kill him to steal it.  The interesting part is that the percentage of "criminal scorpions" stays constant, so as the total population of the species grows and shrinks, the proportion of criminal to honest scorpions stays the same.  Some people would suggest something similar about humans.

I agree with you, Rinku, for the simple fact that humans have much more complex motivations than scorpions.  But I just found that interesting.

[Movius]

Ooh... but it's interesting garbage! That's why I posted it here. Not because I believe everything they say, but because it challenges things we take for granted.

It doesn't really challenge things we take for granted. It just says "here, take this for granted instead." Really just encouraging more of the same sort of thinking.

Why would crime be something which is always the same no matter what happens?

Interesting fact: There's a certain species of scorpion where the males bring flowers to the females, and then the females choose whether to mate with them based on the flower.  A certain (constant) percentage of males go out and do the work to find the flower and bring it to the female.  The rest find a male who has just found a flower and kill him to steal it.  The interesting part is that the percentage of "criminal scorpions" stays constant, so as the total population of the species grows and shrinks, the proportion of criminal to honest scorpions stays the same.  Some people would suggest something similar about humans.

I agree with you, Rinku, for the simple fact that humans have much more complex motivations than scorpions.  But I just found that interesting.

The fact that the criminal/honest scorpion ratio stays the same isn't really astonishing. If it didn't, this species wouldn't exist, or at least it would exist without the criminal class.

[skrew]

I find it surprising that no one here can even acknowledge that the system we live in is utterly flawed and that we need drastic change. Change that can never happen if we continue to live in a system which promotes the idea of putting profits over the benefits of humanity.

Though these guys don't have all the answers and a lot of their answers are pretty far out there. they have definitely outlined some of the core reasons as to why the planet and its people are in the state they are in.

[Paul Eres]

Very few people put profits ahead of all other concerns. I know a lot of people, and I don't know anyone who I'd characterize as someone who puts profits above everything else. I think that movie gives portrays humanity incorrectly by saying that most people are only after money. That's true for only a minority of people, not the average person.

[skrew]

but its not the person that I am talking about. its the corporation that is embodied as a person by law. or its the politician who rationalizes his decisions by how much its going to cost. If that factor was taken out, however small or large its priority is in the making of the decision, it would change a lot of things for the better.

Also. It doesn't matter which CEO's of huge multinational corporations you know rinku. some pretty disgusting facts about the state of living of the large majority of the human population still stand. directly or indirectly because of the indecency of powerful men powered by greed; a biproduct of being raised in a competitive moneytary social structure.

[Movius]

and that means what in English?

[skrew]

in American law a corporation has the same rights as any human being due to some crafty lawyers back in the day. think about the enormity of that. A corporations sole function is to please its stock holders who give it money expecting money in return. so it has all the benefits of a citizen with out any of the moral 'shortcomings'.

An example that is relative to where I live: In Melbourne the public transport is privatized, government keeps tabs on the system and sets efficiency goals for the company to make sure that the private company runs a good service. Because it is cheaper for this company to pay off government fines than buy new trains or build new tracks there are massive delays, packed trains and a shitty time for almost everyone involved, except of course the company and the government.

If you ask me that's a vicious and unproductive cycle.

[Paul Eres]

I think that's too simplistic. Not all areas with private transportation are bad: here in New Jersey we have a mix of both public and private transportation. There are state busses and private busses, state trains and private trains. And universally, the private ones are cheaper, cleaner, and faster. Taking the bus from my house to NYC on public bus costs me 5$ and takes 45 minutes on average, using a private bus costs 4$ and takes 30 minutes. Sometimes profits lead to good results.

Similarly, compare the postal service to the UPS -- UPS is generally cheaper and faster for delivering packages.

I'm not saying that private is better for *everything*, but it's certainly better for some things, some of the time.

[Movius]

in American law a corporation has the same rights as any human being due to some crafty lawyers back in the day. think about the enormity of that. A corporations sole function is to please its stock holders who give it money expecting money in return. so it has all the benefits of a citizen with out any of the moral 'shortcomings'.

An example that is relative to where I live: In Melbourne the public transport is privatized, government keeps tabs on the system and sets efficiency goals for the company to make sure that the private company runs a good service. Because it is cheaper for this company to pay off government fines than buy new trains or build new tracks there are massive delays, packed trains and a shitty time for almost everyone involved, except of course the company and the government.

If you ask me that's a vicious and unproductive cycle.

1) Your example has almost nothing to do with your first paragraph or conclusion.

2) I've never known a corporation that could operate without humans/citizens.

3) Nothing makes an evil-KKKorporation-only-interested-in-profits(tm) pick up their act like competition from another evil-KKKorporation-only-interested-in-profits(tm) with better service. Of course, Melbourne trains being a privately-operated government monopoly, it is illegal for any potential competing train-networks to exist. Thus showing how the "common good" is much better for the world than the evil of ruthlessly competiting for-profit enterprises.

4) For more wonderful things only possible when working for 'humanity as a whole' go here

[Paul Eres]

Good catch, I didn't even notice that they were a state-enforced monopoly rather than just a private train company competing with others.

This may be simplistic, but this is how I think of this:

small businesses competing = good
huge corporations with lobbyists in the government getting special favors = bad
government elected officials funded largely by corporations = bad