Police are waging a futile war against camera-toting citizens. In several states, you can be arrested for filming cops on duty, even in a public place. With cameras growing ever smaller, conflicts are going to arise more often and there can only be one outcome. Police are just going to have to get used to it. Much as I forecast in The Transparent Society (1997).
tension, between citizens armed with new tools of vision and accountability, and tens of thousands of cops who - from day to day - see themselves as doing a harsh, difficult and under-appreciated job. Look, I appreciate it. Not only the skill and professionalism that has played a big part in decreased crime rates ion the United States, but also the daily fight that every officer must wage, to maintain that professionalism, under circumstances that might send any of us into uncontrollable rage. We all carry hormonal and neuronal and psychological baggage from the million year Stone Age... and ten thousand years of urban life in which the king’s thugs patrolled the streets without having to think twice before slinging their truncheons at the heads of punks.
Well, sorry. We’re asking more of you, now. It is our civilization. Ours. And if you don’t think you can operate under the new rules, might I suggest another profession?
In fact, the glass is far more than half full. The men and women in most modern American police forces are adapting to the the new standards of behavior. Clenching their teeth and calling “sir” even the most outrageously abusive drunks.
I refuse to accept the assertion that good cops need “privacy” to perform their jobs. It doesn’t wash. It is a ridiculous argument, aimed at achieving convenience and evasion of accountability, and we will not allow it.
Technology will not allow it. For -- according to “Brin’s corollary to Moore’s Law” -- the cameras will get smaller, cheaper, more numerous and more mobile every year. So figures of authority might as well get used to it now.
This is the new world. It will be watching -- assume it at any given moment. And I promise you this... juries and citizen review boards will bear in mind that we're all human. When you suffer that inevitable, occasional, not-too-awful over-reaction, there will often be a second chance. We're human too and we want our cities patrolled. When all of this equilibrates, we will have to make some allowances for good people, caught making a rare mistake.
But what’s the alternative? Are you really going to try to push this "never record us" lunacy? Do you really want the law to deny us the only recourse that a citizen has ever had, against bullying and abuse of power? Really? The only thing that we have on our side?
It is called the Truth. And if you fear it, then we do not want you as our hired protector.
My Top Choices in Science-Oriented WebComics
from Contrary Brin by David Brin
Xkcd: A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math and Language
phd Comics: Piled Higher and Deeper:
Strange Quark Comics by Dalin S. Durfee, featuring Dr. Ingenio, his nerdly son and assorted nerdy grad students.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Lab Bratz This cartoon offers geeky science humor focusing on laboratory mishaps and disasters waiting to happen
Tree Lobsters!
Abstruse Goose: a cartoon about math, science and geek culture.
Girl Genius, offers the marvels of gorgeously detailed steampunk technology, set in an alternate-history where mad scientists rule the world.
Schlock Mercenary, The Comic Space Opera
Scenes from a Multiverse
Electric Sheep
Apocamon: The Final Judgement
Sci-ənce!
Calamities of Nature
Dresden Codak A beautifully imagined vision that deals with the results of a technological singularity and humanity's role in the cosmos.
Space Trawler Pictured to left
Freefall
Quantum Vibe
Drive
We The Robots
The FlowField Unity
Freak Angels
The Abominable Charles Christopher
Poisoned Minds S.S.D.D.
Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures
And finally, a few Math Comics:
Spiked Math Comics
Math Bunnies: Mathematically Enriched Hares
The Twisted Pencil
Brown Sharpie
. . ...a collaborative contrarian product of David Brin, Enlightenment Civilization, obstinate human nature... and http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/ (site feed URL: http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
The Future - transparency, sci fi, science and the immorality of "rapture"
For H+ Magazine, I was recently interviewed by Ben Goertzel on transparency, accountability, surveillance and sousveillance. and our chances to keep a little privacy in the coming age of light.An example of the "big picture" perspective is this piece I did for Thomas Kuhn's PBS series "Closer to Truth." Are we living in a simulation?
Red wine turns metal compound into superconductor.
Red colobus monkeys in Uganda's Kibale National Park are being hunted to extinction—by chimpanzees.
. Stunning video: NASA captures giant comet hitting the sun. My doctorate was for analyzing the composition and behavior of comets BTW. Put a lot of it into Heart of the Comet. And at Caltech I was a solar astronomer! Combo-interests!
The "No-Losers" Tax Simplification Proposal
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