Think about the term “preemptive war.” Isn’t it a little funny? A war to prevent a war. Is it worth it? What happens if it fails? Could a war larger than the theoretical one be waged then? It is definitely not impossible…

What about the idea that a world without surveillance seems to beg tragedy and pain? Does it have to be that way? Yes, behavioral surveillance has the possibility of stopping incidents from happening, but at what cost? Michael Morris’s “Crystal ball” isn’t as clear as he is making it out to be. Even with the most up-to-date data mining systems, you cannot truly get inside someones head. What happens when an official approaches someone with the intent of preventing a disaster? Could the official rub that person the wrong way and only succeed in pushing someone over the edge? What about the multitude of false-positives that are likely to pop-up? How can any task-force sort through all of them each with a level of scrutiny to determine if a person is sane? And what about the people who leave no virtual mark of the suffering they are going through?

Now think about the mass ignorance of the surveillance already being perpetrated against every one of us? I, for one, had no idea all that the NSA had been reported of doing until taking this class. What about everyone else? Is this ignorance bliss?

What kind of Orwellian society are we living in today? Have our nightmares become our reality?

I am choosing to write about “Mining Student Data Could Save Lives” by Michael Morris because I think Morris brings up many interesting points (some I touched upon above) without truly considering all that comes with it.

 

 

*The title references a famous line from 1984 by George Orwell*