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Sci-fi Writer Elizabeth Moon Believes Everyone Should Be Chipped

Posted by Soulskill on from the i'm-sorry-have-you-met-humanity dept.

Bob the Super Hamste writes "The BBC has an opinion piece from science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon who believes that everyone should be chipped or barcoded at birth. Her reasoning is that it would prevent identification mistakes and even allow soldiers to identify combatants from non-combatants. Her comments came as part of a discussion on future wars hosted by the BBC World Service."

8 of 409 comments (clear)

  1. 3 Words by dcollins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Horrible, dystopian, inevitable.

    --
    We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
    1. Re:3 Words by knuthin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You think it's worth getting your self permanently IDed just so that a bunch of soldiers could identify each other in combat? Wouldn't that application demand ONLY the soldiers to be chipped?

      Also, you really need to give your privacy away with shit like that?

      --
      Some apps are WYSIWYG. Some others are WYSIWTF.
    2. Re:3 Words by eudaemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hi, paranoid science lady. Thank you for putting a friend or foe chip in every enemy soldier fighting against my glorious and righteous cause. I have adapted all my improvised incindiery devices to trigger from their presence. My soldiers can now quickly and safely sweep an area for enemy combatants with nothing more than an RFID gun. Encryption, you say? We destroy all the chips in our equipment so any response at all whether we understand it or not is enough to attack or retreat as we see fit. Of course the secret back door installed by your government was easily reverse engineered and decoded with a few million dollars invested with the right Chinese lab and their scanning-tunneling microscope. I understand your government is enjoying similar benefits now that there are no more anonymous protests, or really anonymity of any kind. You were so right! "something could happen", you said. And now that everyone is chipped it has! We've always been at war with Eurasia.

    3. Re:3 Words by Macgrrl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The 'file' will only be as good as the records management system used to maintain, store and secure such records. Given how poor most large scale record systems are, I would still expect identity theft to be rife, just harder to restore.

      --
      Sara
      Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
  2. Dear Elizabeth by SilverJets · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am not a number.

    Kindly STFU.

  3. Oh god are we falling for this? by AbRASiON · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not even a smart guy and I can put 2 and 2 together here.
    NOTE: "Sci-fi writer" ,............ this screams "please read my books" or "I have a new book coming, I need my name out there in popular culture for a couple of weeks!"

    We're better than this aren't we?

  4. Hold on folks by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'll likely get down modded for this like crazy, but I think everyone is over reacting a huge amount. I actually listened to the clips and it is clear that Elizabeth is talking about a hypothetical situation. She isn't saying she advocates chipping everyone with ID chips in the real world. She was discussing a fictional hypothetical situation she even states it "if I were empress of the universe". Plus she does discuss, the privacy implications, and it's very reasoned. Her main objective was for some sort of method to identify Friend of Foe on the battlefield. She even admits to draw backs and such. You guys are acting like she is some raving lunatic wanting to destroy your lives.

  5. Re:Elizabeth Moon by iphinome · · Score: 5, Informative

    You might be interested to discover that she wasn't actually advocating chipping people. She was asked for wild ideas, not good ideas. It was discussed on her blog when I, myself took her seriously and called her out. http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=1574#comments