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Minority Report Style Iris Scanners In Mexico
TheRealPacmanJones writes "Biometrics R&D firm Global Rainmakers Inc. (GRI) announced today that it is rolling out its iris scanning technology to create what it calls 'the most secure city in the world.' In a partnership with Leon, one of the largest cities in Mexico with a population of more than a million, GRI will fill the city with eye-scanners. The scanners will help revolutionize law enforcement not to mention marketing."
I hate it when filmmakers are just a little too prophetic.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
So now it will be illegal to wear sunglasses in Mexico?
Emotions! In your brain!
BURN IN HELL, MOTHERFUCKER!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Oh, we understand the concept. Look what happened to Iraq when we overthrew Saddam. We broke it, we bought it.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
and they think iris scanners are going to make a damned bit of difference?
Yes, they are going to make a difference! For the official(s) that took the bribe to push this ahead and for the company providing the scanners. How big the difference ? For certain, more than a bit, but I can't say how big.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Hmm, that logic could easily be extended to our efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and even with Islam in total. Somebody alert Beck that we have a solution to our problems, kill them all and let the invisible sky wizard of your own choosing sort them out.
They need their big rich neighbor in the North to decriminalize recreational drugs.
Chicago was also a violent and corrupt city when the recreational use of ethanol was unconstitutional.
They need an effective police state, and a Pinochet, a Franco, or other ruler who has enough leverage to kill anyone who is a threat to good citizens.
There is a point where the strictly limited and extremely restrained legalistic ways which are practical in stable countries do not work.
War, not law, is then necessary to kill and destroy the enemies of the people. Mexico is a failed state, and the way to put those in order is to give orders, enforce them with force, and ensure the narco-warlords are killed so they cannot operate from prison.
In the US, by comparison, we have trivial crime rates, pampered lives, and are so comfortable we cannot even understand such situations.
I am glad that someone wrote this openly. The only way to fight the most dangerous and unrepentant criminals is to kill them.
However, I fear that some politically correct idiots will mod you down...
If you're a law-abiding citizen, you have nothing to hide, and thus couldn't possibly object.
what the FUCK
They need the United States to legalize, and produce locally, the drugs that the gangs depend on for their income, RIGHT NOW, so that someday in the far-flung future their great-grandkids can grow up without violent organized crime everywhere.
No exports to U.S. = no money.
No money = existing drug gangs finally wither away sixty or seventy years from now (based on how long it took the Mob to collapse after prohibition ended).
I hate it when filmmakers are just a little too prophetic.
Or maybe writers like Philip K Dick?
I feel like it's redundant to point out examples of the kind of thing you're talking about since you already mentioned Pinochet or Franco. Nevertheless, I'm going to point out that what you're talking about is exactly what the Taliban were, and look how well they worked out!
How about, instead of giving up on Mexico as a failed state, give up on drug prohibition as a failed policy. Prohibition of things that people simply are not going to stop paying for just doesn't work. Didn't work for alchohol. The human cost was horrible. It doesn't work for prostitution. There all it does is create a class of professionals who are constantly the victims of felonies (violence, robbery, rape, enslavement, etc.) because they're committing misdemeanors and they pretty accurately perceive that if they go to the police with a complaint, they'll be prosecuted for their lesser crimes as low-hanging fruit while those who victimize them largely get away with it. It doesn't work with gambling. One of my sisters exes is a poker addict (he's convinced he can make a living at it because, in his head, he counts his profits when he wins, but never his losses) who apparently plays in some vice den where a good quarter of the patrons are police officers. He doesn't play in the state-licensed gambling establishments because they're frankly more exploitive than the sleazy vice den. The state controls gambling, theoretically to protect people from its dangers, and yet is addicted enough to the revenues that it runs ad campaigns trying to get more people to play the lottery. Drug prohibition has turned large parts of the world into war zones. Meanwhile, the actual supply hasn't been stemmed at all. As stupid as many may have found Nancy Reagan's "Just say no!" policy, it's probably the only part of the drug war that's even been remotely effective. They should just drop prohibition and shift all that effort into proper education. That would never fly in the US, of course, where the CYA principle is so firmly entrenched that stupid stuff like abstinence-only can be substituted in for sensible sex-ed. Any drug education would be similarly neutered crap. What kids need is realistic information on what the effects and dangers of various drugs are, instead they get macho crap from some D.A.R.E. officer telling them they'd better stay of drugs or they'll get busted and then end up being raped in prison.
If the US and other major drug importing nations dropped prohibition and growing the drugs became a legal industry in Mexico, the drug gangs wouldn't vanish overnight. To start with, they'd probably try to keep their control over the drug industry, essentially running protection rackets on farmers producing the drugs. Over time, with the farmers no longer having anything to fear from law enforcement, plus everyone slowly realizing that there's now no effective difference between a cocaine producer and a lima bean producer, and that the money just isn't there in drugs anymore, their concentration in that industry should fade away and their members would probably move on to all kinds of other crime or maybe even legit jobs in some cases. Anyway, it would probably take decades for all the damage and corruption to fade away, but it's a better solution than some all out war that creates "peace" and "order" while filling quiet mass graves in the hills.
Phillip K. Dick should be required reading for all kids. That way when they grow up and begin making decision that effect others, they just might(maybe) say, "Wow, I read something like this when I was a kid, it didn't turn out so well if I remember correctly." The reason so many Science Fiction writers can often be prophetic is that they look at a technology or an idea, and ask "I wonder what could go wrong with this?", "What will this idea mutate into in 100 years?" They think about the horrible, painful, or just bizarre turns technology and ideas can take. It is usually intended as social commentary, but is most often ignored...
Maybe they are just more in-tuned with the spirit of Murphy's Law than most....
I am too, free speech lets me easily identify sociopaths and general nutcases I don't want to be around quite often.
Much the same may be said of the United States.
I'm guessing that you've never really lived in, or even visited, a real third-world country - at least not outside of the usual tourist areas.
If you had, you'd know that the stereotypical boutique comparison you're trolling is more often than not fueled by people who either:
* have a specific (radical/fascist/Utopian/bullshit) agenda to "fix" the "problems".
-or-
* want attention badly - usually for monetary gain, power, and/or notoriety (see also cable news commentators, talk radio hosts, bloggers, the not-so-intelligent politicians among us, et al).
-or-
* desperately want to look like an iconoclastic philosopher in order to get laid at college parties.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?