magi-tech and morality
Jul. 26th, 2015 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrI'm sure many of us have played around with what we (or one of the characters we write about) could do with tech on the level of Star Trek or other SF shows and books. Whicjh is prettuy much "magical tech (thus the "magi-tech" in the title)
I'd been thinking that the sort of sensor tech Trek (and others have) was really problematic.
It'd let you find all the nasty criminals, but at the cost of major league Big Brother or worse tactics.
Still it was fun to think about.
Then, one day, I recalled an old Asimov short story about gizmo that could view the past. Only it turned out to not have nearly the range claimed (centuries). The Powers That Be made a big deal of looking at the distant past, because that keppt people from asking "when does 'the past' begin?"
The answer, of course is "the tiniest frasction of a second ago". So the time viewr was better used as what Smith and others have called a "spy ray".
And that set me thinking on a new tangent.
If you set the right limits on your magitech, you can bypass a lot of the moral/ethical problems.
I decided to assume sensors that could get really good data for decades into the past. Questionable, but makes for such lovely possibilities.
Thus, rather than Big Brother watching everyone & and everything, you have a crimer or possible crime becoming known.
Our Heroes with their magical tech (from the far future, alien, and alternate timeline or whatever) can then look back at said incident and see what happened. And then follow the prepetrators back to their bosses, etc.
Thus any innocent people only get viewed/scanned incidentaly as the surviellance of the actual bad guys procceds thru the remote viewing/past viewing.
Our Heroes would still have to act outside the law to get info that can be turned over to the authorities, or act extra-legallyon their own. But at least they've dodged a major ethical hurdle.
I'd been thinking that the sort of sensor tech Trek (and others have) was really problematic.
It'd let you find all the nasty criminals, but at the cost of major league Big Brother or worse tactics.
Still it was fun to think about.
Then, one day, I recalled an old Asimov short story about gizmo that could view the past. Only it turned out to not have nearly the range claimed (centuries). The Powers That Be made a big deal of looking at the distant past, because that keppt people from asking "when does 'the past' begin?"
The answer, of course is "the tiniest frasction of a second ago". So the time viewr was better used as what Smith and others have called a "spy ray".
And that set me thinking on a new tangent.
If you set the right limits on your magitech, you can bypass a lot of the moral/ethical problems.
I decided to assume sensors that could get really good data for decades into the past. Questionable, but makes for such lovely possibilities.
Thus, rather than Big Brother watching everyone & and everything, you have a crimer or possible crime becoming known.
Our Heroes with their magical tech (from the far future, alien, and alternate timeline or whatever) can then look back at said incident and see what happened. And then follow the prepetrators back to their bosses, etc.
Thus any innocent people only get viewed/scanned incidentaly as the surviellance of the actual bad guys procceds thru the remote viewing/past viewing.
Our Heroes would still have to act outside the law to get info that can be turned over to the authorities, or act extra-legallyon their own. But at least they've dodged a major ethical hurdle.
