As a youngster I read a number of stories which impressed me, stories I’ve always
remembered. One was about a futuristic prison set in a vast,
uninhabited plain. The was no cover on the plain, no hiding place for prisoners should any be
enterprising and lucky enough to escape its massive walls.
Not only was the prison itself secure, but above the plain
robot aircraft patrolled day and night, designed to detect and fire on the slightest
movement. The story concerned an escapee who made it to the plain but I can’t
remember how he avoided those robot aircraft.
What I do remember is how fascinated I was about the notion
of an escape-proof prison, because in my young mind that’s what it was in spite
of the hero presumably escaping. A comparison with modern life is obvious. Even in my
childhood the prison on the plain was not particularly fanciful. Suppose we
stick with the word fanciful.
Imagine a future where there is no cash, nowhere to buy
anything outside monitored electronic transactions. Everyone is known to the
system, anyone can be monitored in any number of ways. Anyone can be
financially deactivated within minutes and located within hours should they
violate any one of an uncountable number of laws and regulations.
Is that fanciful?
6 comments:
Sadly not fanciful.
With plains you might also get thick fog. As the future I think it has already arrived.
Worrying sounds like a blue print for Norwich !
Sackers - close too.
Demetrius - for many of us it probably has.
Wiggia - Norwich seemed okay when we were there a few years ago. We were allowed to escape by rail.
Since I seem to be becoming more voluble, my take on this is it’s interesting: I’m temperamentally all for confiscating the ill-gottens of bogeymen and misery dealers like Colombian drug barons, shadowy Saudis and other archetypes of the popular imagination. Kill them all, if you like, clearly no great loss. Though I’m kind of irked by having to produce intrusively exhaustive ID to an estate agent I’ve known and dealt with for 20 years to buy a house, or even open a new bank account with an institution that is demonstrably less trustworthy than me. Who’s the crim here? Still, you sort of live with it, given that you’ve got no bleeding choice anyway. I’m getting seriously ticked off when legions of jobsworths appear as if unbidden to sell me software and courses in ‘compliance’ at work. I’m starting to hate the phrase ‘Are You Compliant?’
No, I’m not, neither in thought nor deed. You must surely remember ‘What If’ curiosity treatments of zee stinking Nazis vinning zee var unt zee Gestapo examining zee phoney papers at zee checkpoint; just when you thought you might be free. Bummer! It strikes me more and more that we should thank the geographical accident of the English Channel at least as much as our retrospectively and conveniently imagined steely resolution for getting out of that one. We clearly have no end of home brewed ‘compliance officers’ anxious to check our various papers; they would fit right in…which in turn kind of fits in with my thesis of most ‘evil’ being quite casual, essentially thoughtless and socially sanctioned or even encouraged.
And anyway, what sort of grotty kid wants to grow up to be a risk or compliance or diversity officer? OK, firefighter, train driver, cess tank man (actually, that final one was probably just me and my sister, and didn’t last that long before reality dawned).
A ray of hope is that those who would aspire to possession of what you consider yours (or control of you) are a bit like the Keystone Cops, albeit they are getting a bit better. My money remains on the fox in this battle. He may not enjoy or welcome it but he’s got more to lose. Concentrates the mind, etc…
Clacket - there are many who seem to enjoy the compliance game. It's a job for life if you are that kind of person, because the rules are always going to be tightened and the weight of officialdom is always behind you.
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