Re: Not always joking, it seems

On Feb 15, 12:12=A0pm, Jette <bossl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Wim Lewis wrote:
>
> > On-topic, how have SF stories dealt with random murderous outbusrsts?
>
> Judge Dredd - people who suffered from something called "future shock"
> would break out in spontaneous random violent attacks on those around
> them.
>
> --
> Jette Goldie
>
je...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ("reply to" is spamblocked - use the email addy in sig)

I was in Australia recently.  They have poker machines at every bar it
seems. Pokies they're called affectionately.  They are Skinner
machines designed to just give enough reward during play to bleed you
dry.  You win on occasion.  But only so much, and in the end you
lose.  Its called a reinforcement schedule to maximize revenue..

I was reflecting on what Skinner said about society being like a big
Skinner machine you cannot escape. The whole of society becomes a
large reinforcement schedule that promises rich rewards throughout but
in reality, takes everything from you that you've got and play ends
when you are broke.

The more efficient we become along this path, the bleaker things will
be - and in the end, large populations of lucky and unlucky folk alike
will have become desensitized to the messages used to fleece them - by
and large those messages are the fabric that holds society together.
At that point all hell will break loose.

We haven't seen nothing yet.

There are many new crimes and criminals waiting to happen.

I wonder what might have happened if the fellow had had the presence
of mind to plan his escape, and then do it again?   The guy and his
kid who outfitted his car with a sniper's nest and drove around the
country killing people stopped the nation.  A handful of people like
that would be the end of freedom and free movement.  Not only would we
have guns removed from our possession, but we'd also find moving from
one sector of a city to another would be like boarding a plane these
days.

The standing armeis of police would themselves become a threat.  In
Rio - there are off-duty police officers that cruise through the
barrios killing kids that are homeless - sometimes after taunting them
or robbing them or worse.  Them being police and all not much is
done.  Their targets are chosen too - they are defenseless and have no
one looking out for them.  Burdens on society.

I recall the streets of Beruit after the US embassy bombing during the
Reagan administration.  People who travelled through the middle east
wondered if this was a sea change for America?  I looked at the burned
out skyscrapers and rubble strewn streets of Beruit - and saw that ALL
cities some day would become equally uninhabitable.

This was well before 9/11.

The delicious thrill and joy of walking through the streets of
Manhattan on a lovely spring day - or a relaxed Sunday brunch at a
cafe in Paris in the summer - are things that my grand children will
likely not enjoy - and its too bad.

Telerobotics may be favored over air-travel at some point - or even
travel outside one's home - as a security measure.