Safe Zones
This is not a real book idea but a suggestion for a real social
psychological experiment. But if the experiment can never be carried
out, someone had better write a book about it.
The point is, we could live in a much safer place if we gave up our
privacy (which is an illusion anyhow). I imagine a facility where
there are no blind spots, everything happens in front of TV cameras.
The only thing is, no one is watching. Miles and miles of videotapes
are being recorded and stored temporarily without looking at them.
However there is some act of crime these tapes are to be searched for
clues. (Hopefully, even this procedure can be done by machines, at
least in the majority of the search process.)
You can only enter this facility after a finger print identification.
So indentified, whatever you do is being recorded. Whatever happens
the frames will show who did it, where and when.
There are two problems. One is that of course the suicide type of
crime cannot be prevented. But if the perpetrator is routinely
identified, without exceptions, the crime rate would drop to near
zero. The other problem is the safety of the cameras themselves.
Since all cameras should be working all the time, it would be the
highest type of urgency to identify an attack against cameras, when
security people are sent to the area. And of course even in this
case it would be found out in seconds who did harm to the system.
I can imagine a conspiracy where someone makes the damage so that someone
else could commit a murder or something like that, outside the range
of the security system. But this should be a rare exception, and the
fact that real people would intervene withing minutes would limit
the freedom of the plotters.
The social psychological part of it would be to investigate how much
of their privacy people would sacrifice for their high-level security.
Since the recorded events should be kept a secret, it is not that every
act is to be noticed and dealt with. Plus, if everybody makes love in
front of cameras it is not very interesting that you too do it. However,
if you commit adultery, you might not want it to be on the record.
The wish of freedom is so important in people's minds that they might
not want to trade it for this maximum security. But individuals may
have different views on this.
Instead of small facilities, this concept could be expanded to streets,
neighborhoods, even to whole districts (although the maximum coverage may be
increasingly difficult to reach). In cities and district where crime is a
growing public concern, people may find it a good solution.
We just do not know. This is why this experiment should be carried
out. And this is why someone should write this book.