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social effects of common tech
Nov. 26th, 2010 01:28 pmA side note of a discussion over on the Traveller RPG mailing list got me thinking about stuff that's been going on for a few years.
As certain technology gets cheaper and more common, there are going to be *major* social changes.
Consider: Rodney King was far from the first person (black or white) to get an undeserved beat down by the police. But unlike previous occurrences, people with cheap video cameras were there to tape the beating.
Nowadays, most cell phones have cameras, and many have video capability. Likewise, some have audio recording. So a *lot* of TSA incidents are getting filmed/recorded by folks using their cell phones.
This sort of thing is already having effects.
Now add in the video surveillance gear that a lot of stores have (and *need). As wel as things like dash cams in police vehicles.
Pervasive video surveillance is heading towards "Big Brother". But pervasive presence of *personal* video recording is going to make it harder and harder for police and others to get away with misconduct.
And with storage getting cheaper and bandwidth doing so as well, I can see the point where you can "get an app" that has a legal service on call. Punch the button and the service gets the last X minutes of sound/video from your phone and can then activate the speaker on the phone so you can inform the cop/official that they are incorrect about the law. Or that there are a number of differing legal opinions, and that they could wind up in deep kimchee if they try to carry on with what they are doing.
Heck, picture the results of some of the more infamous no-knock searches in the US if the houses had webcams sending to a security service for offsite storage.
As certain technology gets cheaper and more common, there are going to be *major* social changes.
Consider: Rodney King was far from the first person (black or white) to get an undeserved beat down by the police. But unlike previous occurrences, people with cheap video cameras were there to tape the beating.
Nowadays, most cell phones have cameras, and many have video capability. Likewise, some have audio recording. So a *lot* of TSA incidents are getting filmed/recorded by folks using their cell phones.
This sort of thing is already having effects.
Now add in the video surveillance gear that a lot of stores have (and *need). As wel as things like dash cams in police vehicles.
Pervasive video surveillance is heading towards "Big Brother". But pervasive presence of *personal* video recording is going to make it harder and harder for police and others to get away with misconduct.
And with storage getting cheaper and bandwidth doing so as well, I can see the point where you can "get an app" that has a legal service on call. Punch the button and the service gets the last X minutes of sound/video from your phone and can then activate the speaker on the phone so you can inform the cop/official that they are incorrect about the law. Or that there are a number of differing legal opinions, and that they could wind up in deep kimchee if they try to carry on with what they are doing.
Heck, picture the results of some of the more infamous no-knock searches in the US if the houses had webcams sending to a security service for offsite storage.
