The Truth Machine by James Halpern 1996 and the Matrix
It’s a book I bought to read because of the security books I buy on Amazon. It popped up as one of those ones – if you read X others read Y and you might like it.
I recommend these to anyone:
Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century
by Simson Garfinkel
Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World
by Bruce Schneier
Please read on for my take on the book and a closed Matrix world
[b”>(1500 words – my LONGEST BLOG!)[/b”>
So to get you in my head for 5 minutes last night I watched “Matrix Reload†with a reluctant wife who fell asleep through it and this morning I finished The Truth Machine, a book I bought probably two years ago but never got round to reading!
The premise of the book is that a strange individual called Pete Armstrong develops a device that is an infallible lie detector. It leads to world peace and complete world harmony etc. Each chapter is preceded by what the author things will happen with the future of world terrorism and technological developments, which on a number of occasions he was staggering close – especially with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
Computer Science people will realize that it was Alan Turin who proved that for a machine to not fail it has to have infinite processing power and infinite memory.
However even with this knowledge it was interesting read.
General things running through my mind at the moment:
I believe in the Sovereign Individual
We are/can be one world
Lawlessness in the Western World is increasing more than before in relation to history (IMHO)
World Terrorism is going to be more of a problem because one nutter can kill loads of people in a way not possible before
Government will fall due to its inability to collect taxes – either through tax evasion or people refusing to pay it due to poor service
Digital Money provides a binary view, traceable money or cash
Three things keep the world ticking: arms production, car production & drug running
In order to keep tax coming in Government will opt for traceable Money
Citizens will develop their own parallel cyber currencies like LETS
Passports in the UK with the ability to store public key signed biometrics are planned to introduced 2004/2005
All the 911 terrorists traveled on valid ID
RFID proximity tags will be commonplace in all everyday items by 2010
I believe that by 2030 we will have computers costing $1000 in today’s money that can display human like reasoning and these will be coupled into service robots
There will be massive unemployment
They’re maybe little inflation
Food and clothing needs should become plentifully cheap because of Nanotechnology driven factories
In the far future will money have much of place in society anyway? 2070
World Population will have to be controlled – how?
Having typed up the list I’m now thinking that there fixed points in time when most technologists would agree that certain technology will exist and that we can already determine some uses but certainly not all the consequences.
Politicians or the individual’s acceptance of these realities is fixed. They only have so long to form legislative frameworks to cope, because the technologies will be upon them whether they like it or not. EG DNA fingerprinting and mass automated ID recognition systems.
What is Government and why was it formed?
Well, in Britain it was formed to stop the King from repressing the people or more accurately the landowners of the time who kept getting badger for money to pay for foreign wars.
Who was the King?
The King was the person whose family was top dog. Land / ownership / if you don’t give me that X, I’ll beat you up or rape all your women type of jobby.
The Bank of England was created to raise money to fight foreign wars on behalf of the King.
This caused inflation and has been a curse ever since.
Getting inflation down stops a falling of production, to stimulate the investments, i.e. to promote creation of a real monetary base.
[i”>But if everybody has what he or she wants surely the nature of money disappears?[/i”>
Government sells itself to the public as representing Law and Order, but cannot, especially in the short term without revenue. 2010-2030 which could be the hard years where things get tough. It has to convince the people that it if you pay your taxes that it can protect you from terrorists – which clearly it might not be able to.
I am 35 in October 2003 and if things have become infinitely cheap and life expectancy goes increasing I’ll be only be 82 in 2050.
As time goes by more people will realize – what’s the point of worrying about the future and old age. Dumb down and get jobs that they enjoy, cover the bills but fail to push themselves intellectually. As time has gone by the intellectual based jobs have just got more stressful as the number people employed in these areas has been slashed to save wage bills and increase corporate profits. We’ve just ended up with a three-tier economy. Top mangers earning millions, an educated middle class that could just get by on one income – but the other allows a nice house, foreign holidays and housing in good area for raising children and the working class who rely dual incomes to pay the mortgage. The fourth class on social security or welfare only count as a drain on the system at the moment, but by 2050 half of us might be in the fourth class but it won’t matter – because we won’t care.
Dilemmas the UK National Office of Statistics states that:
Women with higher educational qualifications are 50% less likely to have children without them.
Almost a quarter of all women with degrees remain childless.
In a Brave New World the class of 2020 won’t be anywhere near as bright as 2000 to drive the world in which they will live.
The film Gattaca depics a world where parents can “choose†the IQ and physical genetic makeup of their children.
If population does end up being state controlled will it dictate to couples that you must have low IQ or high IQ child because of the current quota?
Government has to go because after 2050 it has no real purpose that I can see, people will accept that population does not need management if it can protect it’s people from terrorism. They will stop paying taxes.
Government on the world is a new fangled thing, religion however is not and it will see its opportunity to do some after life selling. But as life expectancy rockets and death only occurs by accident their product will loose its appeal. They will however put up an extremely big fight, they have everything to gain and everything to loose.
[b”>Organized religion is the New World Evil?[/b”>
By 2030 Nanotechnology in the back bedroom will provide a mentally unstable person with the ability to destroy the planet in 7 days. They will of course be receiving their orders for their God.
At the turn of the century the Japanese sent their brightest people to Britain to study Engineering. Japan created the intellectual property in its people to be able to build products for use in the Second World War because of this. At Bletchley Park where Britain broke all of the communication codes used against the allies they had problems on the Japanese desk because there were so few British Scholars in Japanese.
In a crude way, tracing the people who have knowledge to do unthinkable things with biological and thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction should be possible. One big list of University enrollments of certain subjects, you’d have a whole load of people who couldn’t build a potato gun, but you’d have entire shopping list of people who could construct WMD.
With the Internet, Nanotechnology and Biotechnology learning access will be at the end of terminal and just as you can order some anthrax with a credit card and some fake lab paper, in 2020 you’ll be able to by the lab equipment required with a credit card.
[i”>These individuals will be untraceable.[/i”>
[b”>Who will they be?[/b”>
I think that history tells us they will be a lone Unabomber. Not in fact tied to a nutty sect.
[b”> In order for the world to survive[/b”>
We may because of not being able to readily trace these individuals through the traditional means. IE Attending Higher Education or membership of a religion.
It might be that we have to catalogue the entire human race by genetic make up and psychological profile.
The Truth Machine is a thought provoking book which provides the view of a Matrix world where the population assimilate all acts for non aggressive for the sustained future of the planet.
Who will you vote for?
Will you vote at all?
Do you think there are people and parties that we can vote for?
What will you do?
Do you want to reach my Utopia of 2050?