On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Yonah Russ wrote:
> their afraid that someone could find out what they're doing, maybe they
> shouldn't be doing it? Besides, I don't see any reason why the resulting
> identification system has to be personally traceable.
The MI will strongly disagree. They are oh so near to nab all the
potential kiddie p0rn lovers, and eavesdrop on everyone just in case
Once again- if you don't break the law, then why would you care?
Once somebody redefined darkness as light and got away with it, who
knows what permitted or tolerated act I do today will be judged as
blasphemous and obscene in five years. F.ex. the us of a plans to keep
'terrorism' related data (i.e. your fingerprints and security score at
the airport - score which automatically rates you a yellow sticker as an
israeli - i.e. a security risk) for 40 years. This means that if you
travel there when 20 years old and commit a small misdemenaor (like
forgetting to remove a stray bullet from your backpack which was used by
someone else during miluim - something that happened recently to some
backpackers who went to India) this will be held against you for 40
years, i.e. until you will be 60.
I personally don't see why as much law enforcement is as automated as
possible. Take traffic laws for example- Almost everything could be
automated. Why should cars be capable of driving faster than the highest
speed limit? Why should trucks be capable of driving when they are pulling
more than the allowed weight? Why shouldn't cars require a valid license to
start the engine? Even better- the car should not only require a valid
license, but the license should be matched against the insurance policy of
the car and you should have to pass a breathalyzer test before the engine
starts. ;)
You are of course assuming that the laws are perfect and consistent, and
constant. The laws are made by a few people who think that they are in a
position to judge for many, and who strongly believe that they can
foretell what the others will or might do in a given situation. They
have been proven wrong in this by history every day since the word law
was coined eons ago. It is interesting to notice that none of these wise
people who predict funding, appropriations, inflation and other key
parameters for months or years for a population of several millions in
their legiferation are able to predict what they themselves are going to
do or say or spend the very next day, even without 'interesting times'
like wars or oil price hikes elsewhere throwing a wrench into the
calculations.
F.ex. with cars, biometric security was implemented by some, f.ex.
Mercedes. As a result, recently a Mercedes was appropriated in a
South-East Asian country, complete with the owner, who was needed to
operate the fingerprint reader. Later the thieves got bored of lugging
the owner around and chopped his finger off with a machete, tossed him
out and kept the car. The story made the news. Locks are made for honest
people. Making a few million people do strange things (like appearing to
kiss the steering wheel or some other car part repeatedly to onlookers)
to be able to drive their cars (even if technology does not play up)
will not stop any fraudsters from having it their own way, just like a
DNA database for the entire population will not likely help catching
thieves (but may help identify them after they are caught by other
means - and for this, a database spanning the entire population is not
neded).
One of the bigger failures of the communist totalitarian systems in
Eastern Europe was the iron-clad 'five year plan' which was a blatant
aberration that dictated how many pairs of shoes, loaves of bread,
harvests, books, newspapers, and sick leave days a population of several
millions of souls would need, five years ahead, and tried to provide for
that. The enforcement of those impossible plans was a part of the terror
that reigned then and there, and the fundamental reason for the frequent
complete lack of basic consumer and subsistance goods (like food, soap,
clothes and shoes) in those countries. Your idea of mechanizing law and
taxes is a move in the same direction. One, Orwell, wrote a novel about
this.
The combination between inherently imperfect laws and the strong
enforcement thereof (for example by full automation or by a police
state) is a proven recipe for economic and social disaster.
At least one country has had its tax laws implemented in a programming
language (prolog). I understand that it is mostly made of heuristic
rules which preempt the default 'rules'. (Links:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=41735.41750)
http://www.cbbrowne.com/info/freetaxsoftware.html
http://opentaxsolver.sourceforge.net/
Note that this is not a working model, many heuristics are added and
deleted every day, and the software that implements it (available in
Canada for ~$20 and up or by subscription) changes every year ;-)
I know nearly nothing about taxation anyway (I come from one of the
handicapped countries behind the Iron Curtain so I know more about five
year planned disasters). I thought that I left that behind, but now it
is catching up in the form of the great jerusalem firewall (there was
considerable media censorship back then). I am so thrilled. NOT.
Peter
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