> HH: The only feasible long term approach to advanced technology in terrorist hands probably is:
> (a) Establish world government > (b) Disarm everyone > (c) Permit access to technology development information, tools and materials only under license and regular inspections. You may have missed the only real solution, which does involve technology - in the sense of being forced into every individual... to be explained. This theme of dealing with deep-rooted pernicious terrorism has actually been explored quite often in film, "Brazil" "1984", "The minority Report" and "A Clockwork Orange" including the **real** solution to the problem of terrorism (or 'ultraviolence' for its own sake), if you are a Kubrick/Burgess fan. Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" is the a cult classic - a surreal nightmare, demented and bizarre, but it can has a quirky charm, set amidst constant terrorist explosions, so that you can't decide whether or not you are supposed to be frightened or sympathetic... especially given the behind-the-scenes level of torture, used to ferret out the dissidents. Of course, by the time the nightmare is revealed, we know that it is even scarier because it was masqueraded as a friendly facade, but the reality is far more unpleasant for what has really happened in this alternative universe, as in the opening scenes of the Matrix. Or we can take mind-control to another level, like what is experienced by publishing tycoon David Aames in "Vanilla Sky"... who, like Sam Lowry, your work-a-day "Brazilian" (and "Neo") wants to get out of the terrible nightmare, but none can bring himself to wake up with out some help. Lowry/Aames dream about a certain girl in elaborate and breath taking dream sequences, Cruise-over-Cruz, so to speak... and the dreams have a story-line of their own, which take most viewers away from the real plot, but what is ever "real" and what is imagined? And, futhermore, does this delusion usually come at state expense? Orwell's 1984, but it is more of a grim post-apocalyptic, co ntrol-utopia nightmare vision, and there is no doubt about the issue of state-expense and level of control. But I think the solution in all cases is related to an evolutionary "improvement" of state-sponsored imposed mind-control. We may be living at the only juncture in human history where some degree of true freedom is temporarily available, and if we loose it, that will be due to the "excuse" (real or imagined) of terrorism. Stalin, the master of brutal control, remarked that religion is the opiate of the masses, but implied that no drug was enough... and that was largely correct for several thousand years, until his imposed brutalism supplanted religion as a control method. Which can, in other circumstances, also be supplanted by **Television** the Prozac of the masses - at least in certain cultures where prosperity is overflowing - and TV took over as the drug-of-choice in many places, for a while, but it is too diluted for the task of mind-control when it goes up against either ingrained poverty... or lese the dark side of religion, distorted for political purposes. Terrorism pretty much depends on religious-like zeal being implanted in young impressionable minds, or else extreme poverty, and to counter that, you must employ something of equal or greater strength. The torture/mind control images in "Brazil" and "A Clockwork Orange" are so shocking, that the deterrence effect of them alone would seem to be enough, but I think that ultimately even brutality is not enough and it will demand a higher level of mind-control than either torture or religion or the strongest of drugs even. I'm surprised Horace and Jed did not focus on what will probably be the only real control-level answer to terror in our fast-approaching future. It has been explored also in film, going back to "The Manchurian Candidate" and a long legacy of follow-on film, ah yes, the ultimate solution - the brain implant ... but I don't want to spoil the fun of revealing the more modern details for anyone who hasn't seen and understood the ultimate solution to terrorism. Jones
