keitai-l@appelsiini.net writes:
>and while technologically possible
>to some extent, completely impractical and the wrong solution for the
>wrong problem.
Depends what the "real" problem is.... If your problem is how to keep tabs
on all your citizens, then encouraging the growth of location based
services via keitai or implanted chips is a very good start. Make a
society difficult to live in UNLESS you have an implanted chip - because
so many services are geared to them, then make them compulsory.
E.g., in the UK there is lots of talk of "entitlement cards" - in reality
ID cards. One option is to make them - not compulsory, but required to use
various government services.... After they gain grudging acceptance, the
step to making them a legal requirement would be easy.
The problem with the UK mail service isn't that they don't offer enough
hi-tech services, it is that they don't do the bog basic things -
delivering the mail on time without losing it, properly.
There is the additional wrinkle that the GPS system is under American
control, as I recollect. If services such as these are an "additional
extra" to a basic, standard service - fine. But no govt. in their right
mind would want to increase reliance on them for socially necessary
services unless they had control over GPS or an alternative. (One was
considered but rejected by the Europeans, as I remember).
Paranoid? - no - the rules have changed in the last year.
(I have deliberately avoided comments on American policy as Keitai-l is
not the place for a flame war. I would appreciate it if respondents could
exercise similar discipline.)
Nick
Received on Thu Jan 23 16:07:37 2003