All I want Is to Change the Channel

I am living in a country where the borders between reality and television/movie fantasy has disappeared. I don't know what is real life and what is scripted programming any longer.

Big Brother Is Watching
It is not just a metaphor from the Orwell novel 1984 or the movie renditions. He really is watching as we walk down the street. Look up, sometimes you can see the cameras. He knows every purchase we make, whether we prefer corn flakes or sugar puffs for breakfast. What do you think that supermarket discount card is for? All the Google searches I made researching this have been logged and recorded. And, so what? We really don't care. We feel safer from muggers, terrorists and people who would steal our identities. Actually, the Feds are rather sloppy about securing all the information they have gathered.

If you rejoice at the knowledge Big Brother cares for you, the Students for an Orwellian Society are for you. If, on the other hand, you care about keeping certain things private, visit the Privacy Rights Clearhouse but, beware, Big Brother will know you've been there.

Desire is Irrelevant - I am a Machine
It's bad enough that Arnold Schwarzenegger is (and will likely remain) my Governor. The new breed of robot warriors being developed for the Pentagon are "self-learning and adaptability." They don't need detailed programming to seek out and destroy their targets. They can figure things out for themselves, adapt to injury, even teach each other. We are planning to produce swarms of killer mechanical cockroaches (remember that X-Files episode), each individually intelligent and able to attack in concert. Judgement Day will approach to the sound of scurrying little artificial feet.

'If torture is evil shouldn’t we boo Jack Bauer'
Last June, the Heritage Foundation (right-wing think tank if you didn't know) hosted a seminar on how close to fact the televison series "24" is and whether we should care if it is real or fiction. Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff took time off from his busy job protecting the nation to be the keynote panelist. Chertoff praised the show's realism while moderator Rush Limbaugh thanked the show for giving torture a good name. The quote above is from National Review writer Jonah Goldberg.

Share and Enjoy
What started me on this flight of fear is a little story about intelligent elevators and intelligent floors. The elevators use artificial intelligence to manage riders while the floors track your movements by body weight so the floor knows exactly where, when, and how quickly every individual has walked. The floor will even know if you are carrying something on the return trip.

This reminded me of the Sirius Cybernetics elevators in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who were so intelligent they got bored with just going up and down and ended up sulking in the basement.

Really, I swear, I'm trying not to panic.