Shalako - Love, Money, Sex and Death in the 21st Century

Love and Money, Sex andDeath

In the21 st Century

Louis Shalako

This Smashwords edition Copyright 2014Louis Shalako and Long Cool One Books

Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-1-927957-00-4

The following is a work of speculation.Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any placesor events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings,characters and incidents are the product of the authorsimagination. The authors moral right has been asserted.

This ebook is licensed for yourpersonal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or givenaway to other people. If you would like to share this book withanother person, please purchase an additional copy for eachrecipient. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, orit was not purchased for your use only, then please return toSmashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respectingthe hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Love, Money, Sex andDeath

Louis Shalako

Foreword

The following is a seriesof essays on the subject of ten moral and ethical dilemmas, all ofwhich represent important questions that will be dominant in theearly part the 21 st century.

With extensive hyper-linking to outsidesources the author experiments with stream-of-consciousnessstory-telling as well as a new presentation of observation,speculation and opinion, with results that are surprising,poignant, and relevant as the world stands poised on the brink of anew tomorrow. It was only a short time ago, when we were madlyreading about the science-fiction, comic-book world we presentlyinhabit and the conversation is just beginning. Due to formattingconstraints photo credits are listed at the end of thebook.

Thank you for reading thishyper-text.

Louis

The ThoughtPolice

Thought police may not be too far offinto the future, and oddly, time-cops as well. Read the followingpassage very carefully and youll see they use the term futurecrime.

(Cops are already solving crimes longin the past. They do it in the present moment, not bytime-travel)

The National Institute ofJustice defines predictive policing as taking data from disparatesources, analyzing them and then using the results to anticipate,prevent and respond more effectively to future crime. Some of thesedisparate sources include crime maps, traffic camera data, othersurveillance footage and social media network analysis. But at whatpoint does the possibility of a crime require intervention? Shouldsomeone be punished for a crime they are likely to commit, based onthese sources? Are police required to inform potential victims?*How far in advance can crimes be forecasted?

They also mention socialmedia network analysis. (See: intelligence-gathering network. )

Preventive policing sort of ignoresany presumption of privacy on the part of theindividual.

There are those who will say, Well,if you arent doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worryabout.

Lets extend that.

If you arent thinking anything wrong,then you have nothing to worry about

This is the door the thought policecome in, isnt it? They might even kick it in.

The future is already here, for wehave had instances of crime prevention when cops get a tip thatsomeone is threatening someone through the use of social media. Ifan arrest is made, a future crime may well have beenprevented.

But in the broader senseof the article preventive policing takes a lot of numbers from a lot ofplaces.

It assigns weights or values to eachfactor that goes into any persons make-up at any giventime.

Over the course of our life, ourcircumstances change, and so would our personalalgorithm.

The risk factors change, and at somepoint in our life we may have reached a low point. This can bemeasured against a previous high point, a threshold of danger orrisk may be reached, and a little bell goes off down at policeheadquarters.

If our subject, a guy called Edwin,living in Lincoln, Nebraska, has a personal algorithm, one based onall the data that can be gathered from monitoring his socialinteractions, using biometric recognitions and mood analyses fromgas station security cameras, from his shopping habits, fromrecognizing his license plate at stop-light intersections, fromsemantic analyses of his postings on Facebook, by key-wordrecognition, the thought police might very easily determine thatEdwin is at risk to offend against the municipal, state, orfederal laws.

Every thing Edwin says is being takendown so that it can be used against him, but the cops are justdoing their jobs, right?

They may determine on an intervention.They may wish to prevent him from assaulting his ex-girlfriend, orfrom committing suicide, or robbing a bank or starting up a methlab or violating any other recognizable statute.

What if Edwin has a history ofalcoholism and the cops are notified that he just bought andinsured a vehicle. Maybe hes been seen at a gas station, not toofar from the liquor store.

Maybe they should put a car nearby andtake a look at Edwin.

A lot of nice, well-meaning,thoughtful people would even applaud that. They might stop Edwinfrom going head-on into a minivan with a mother and four childrenin it later that night.

Sounds like a good idea,right?

Unfortunately, he hasnt actually doneanything yet. Hes merely at rick and arguably others are at riskfrom Edwinin the future. Maybe. Maybe even most likely.

The legislation which enablespreventive policing has carefully written clauses regarding how anoffender poses a public or private menace, orwhatever.

What are you going to do withEdwin?

Are you going to sentence him tothirty days in the county bucket?

Are you going to stick him in withother offenders of a more serious nature? Is his cell-mate a memberof a drug-running bike gang? Is he a thief, a con-artist, does hegrow dope, does he run illegal aliens over the border?

Edwin will be exposed to morecriminality. Jail has been called a university of crime.

Will you take Edwin to the hospitalfor a period of observation?

Will a court order him to attend to apsychiatric program, one designed to help at-risk future offendersto work through their issues and move on with their lives in a morepositive direction?

How are you going to pay for all ofthat?

And how is Edwin going to like beinggrabbed, losing his job, consequently losing his home, and endingup on the street because someone decided that he was a risk? Eventhough he never actually did anything? Except be an alcoholic, buya car and get some gas, bearing in mind that hes upset with hisex-girlfriend?

If he gets desperate enough, out thereon the street, he might just remember that he had a cell-mate thatpromised to set him onto something good, some easy money kind ofoperation and Edwin might not have much going for him to beginwith, and so he might just look his new friend up.

Whats really terrifying is thecombination of privatized prisons, shrinking state budgets, theneed to keep all those beds filled in a private jail to keepprofits flowing to shareholders, and there have already beenabuses.

Throw mandatory-sentencing legislationinto the mix and some robot guards, and you have a potentbrew.

Thats because we have differentlevels of crime, and therefore we must have different levels offuture crime. The corollary of this would be different levels ofpunishment.

The lowest level is simple larcenyandstealing someones lawn mower is somehow seen as less serious whencompared to sticking up a gas station attendant with a shot-gun inhis face and running off with the proceeds.