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The Minority Report
Minority Report
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Discussion > Questions for 2014 Jan 4 #edcmchat
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P.K.Dick wrote this when he was 28!3 topics that came across for me:
prescience and power
truth and bureaucracy
human obsolesence
.
Mod
The main topic that stood out for me was alternate futures and how the present may be the only certainty we have.
Also, what of the poor mutants - who were they and how did they know their predictions were right?
Could predictive analytics (eg learning analytics) be sending learners down the wrong route? Is society today relying too much on data without context? (Fits with Ping's second theme) What might the implications of this be?
Great story, really enjoyed it. Might have to dust off the dvd too.
Not sure I will make the chat as we are away on holiday. Enjoyed the story and must be one of the few people that never saw the film! Interesting idea that you can "control" crime by locking up criminals BEFORE they commit a crime! What happened to the basic right of innocent until proven guilty. The whole concept doesn't sit easily with me. This news report raises some pertinent issues There was also a news report from the UK this week about the UK government "filtering" internet use which I think touches on the similar human rights, freedom of expression, issues
I think the theme of humanity is what this story comes back to - we have to trust each other, we have to treat each other with decency and understanding and there will always be good and always be evil people in the world. It isn't always possible to categorise people according to preset parameters and foresee actions. Humans act and react according to the situation and the context and simply because we are human with thoughts, feelings, moods and relationships those actions and reactions are not constant. It is quite scary to think that we could be judged and dealt with with no regard to those human traits.
It's super you haven't watched the film, Anne ~ it's hard to erase images implanted, and read the original story without at least a little intrusion of prior ground laid, especially plot line or visual imagery.Thought-provoking links and thoughts on human spectrum. An interesting article in response: "The powerful � if they want to keep their power � will try to know as much about us as they can, and they will try to make sure that we know as little about them as is possible." Sounds like Leopold Kaplan.
Enjoyed the story too.
The precogs remind me of the little girl Felka in Reynolds' Great Wall of Mars.
And the atmosphere reminded me of edcmooc1 video Plurality .
Don't know how much I'll be able to tune in tomorrow but will try & my Internet connection may be slower.
Maybe (simply putting K's thoughts into Q'ss):
Q1 Who/what were the precogs; were their predictions were right?
Q2 Could predictive analytics (eg learning analytics) be sending learners down the wrong route?
Q3 Is society today relying too much on data without context?
Q4 What might the implications of this be?
Great questions K!
Mod
I saw parallels between precrime and changes in the law in the UK and elsewhere over the last couple of decades: control orders for terrorist suspects, indefinite detention for people considered to have "dangerous and severe personality disorders".
Also was musing about the similarities between the processing of the precogs' reports uttering and the mass surveillance revealed by Snowden et al, which is only of any value if sifted through data-analytical models (how many 'majority reports' there?). There seemed to be little skepticism on the part of the officers in the story about the output of there models... an over-reliance on technology.
I'd like to work these thoughts into Q4, if that's OK with everyone.
Mod
Mod
So there were lots of parallels with our lives now, and with real events. There was also the issue of security & trust which echoed the Government filtering of the internet now. They say it's for our security but it isn't at all, there is another agenda at work. And that's the same across many political stories like the Snowdon one.
I was also thinking of how improvements in technology & science change the way we convict criminals. In the story, the precogs "know" what will happen in the future. How close are we getting to that now? What would have once been dismissed as "they are a bad character full stop" could now be proved otherwise. There was this story which I think has come up before
And the neuro-scientist David Eagleman researches this too. In the case he describes in the first part of this link, the criminal "knew" they were going to do something before they had. They didn't know why, but they just knew it. The post mortem revealed they had a brain tumour.
This is also related to the issues of destiny and free will which came up. Although the characters, and we the readers, keep getting wrong footed about who is pulling the strings, in the end he does kill Leopold Kaplan as the pre-cog had said. It felt a bit like Oedipus Rex. No matter what he did he would always fulfil his destiny. I was also thinking about other old stories, like King Arthur and the sword in the stone for instance. That idea that your destiny is marked out for you. Or whether you can shape your own destiny? Might you win a battle but ultimately end up losing the war? I guess it's a powerful human emotion, and and one that is easily manipulated - for good or bad. To what extent will science or technology use or abuse this?
Jan 4: UK 9.30pm-10.30pm (Saturday night)
= Jan 5: NZ 10.30am-11.30am (Sunday morning)
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soft copy:
^
p.62-90 of
Dick, P. K. (1987). The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol. 4: The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories.
PLEASE SHARE your thoughts, feelings, desires, ideas for discussion
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