On Thu, 5 Jul 2001, Aimee Farr wrote:
Tim's comment about facial recognition ("Smart CCTV" on the signage) being a social mindgame does bring to mind predictions of a surveillance caste system and real-space criminal "blocks" or enclaves (i.e. Escape From New York). "We're watching you" = "Don't come here," pragmatically forcing undesirables outside legitimate transactional and social systems.
Right. Between all the "offender databases" and "surveillance for your (cough) protection" and so on, anyone who's got a record winds up so completely frozen out of normal society that it becomes impossible for them to get by without continuing as a part of criminal society. It's the twenty-first century. Nobody cares if you go straight anymore.... Bear