Brian Gallimore's Blog

Lots of good insight in this TED talk. I was cringing for the first 3/4s of the video in anticipation of where he was going, but he came to the (almost) correct conclusion. (my thoughts about this are below)

Marc Goodman: A vision of crimes in the future

Marc is correct (I think) in saying we are at a point in time where we are going to have a paradigm shift in law enforcement. On a side note, there is a trend in law enforcement currently to centralize. Local agencies are working more and more with federal agencies, and global agencies are more and more involved in national issues. BUT THIS ISN’T WORKING TOO WELL. What goes though my mind every time I hear about these long, drawn out attacks by a few individuals? “Why don’t any of these citizens step up and defend themselves?” The answer is that in most parts of the world outside of Texas, people don’t think this way. Most people don’t think it is their responsibility to defend themselves or their family. (they pay taxes for someone else to do that — if you don’t believe me, read some of the comments on this youtube video) So, point #1 is that I think crimes of of the future will need to be stopped by ordinary citizens, and if not, a more oppressive, forceful, inefficient, intrusive, and less effective global police force will fill that void.

Point #2 is that I think the other part of the answer to this problem is the same answer I have to fix our government/republic system. It involves using social media to ‘vote up’ certain experts, leaders, and representatives based on actual human interactions and skill level rather than special interest and influence of money. The same system could be used to ‘grade’ how honest/trustworthy people are, and also tag people who are known to be bad people. (I know, not very PC to label someone bad) The long history of interactions with other people could have a real and meaningful implications with a tool like this. Most people would realize it is in their best interest to be good, and organized crime would be harder to implement.