[DRAFT] Through a Scanner Darkly

[Caracasus]

So I'm going through a Phillip K Dick phase at the moment. Shoot me. Have at it NS.

Some of you might have noticed that it's about 95% accurate. So is it better to let ten innocent men go free than one innocent man get punished?

Premise: At a dazzlingly anticipated press conference, @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@ Rosen opened a timestamped envelope to reveal that experimental computer program V.A.L.I.S had correctly predicted the criminal behaviour of nineteen of the twenty ringleaders in last Thursday's post-@@ANIMAL@@ball riot. Using metadata gathered from citizens' social media activity, spending habits and permanent school records, the new VI seems to be able to predict criminal behaviour with startling accuracy.

Validity: Some degree of authoritarianism/law and order spending. Must have teh interwebs. Must have some degree of scientific advancement.

[option]"Just think, @@LEADER@@," enthuses brand spokesperson Rachel Rosen with a slightly unsettling smile. "This is just a trial run with what limited data we could pull on those living in the area. Imagine what we could accomplish with access to the more... sensitive information the government holds? Think of the lives that would be saved if we could predict, to within a reasonable margin of error, criminal acts before they occur?"
[effect] criminals are often distinguished through their suspicious lack of online presence

[option]"This is bloody ridiculous!" exclaims veteran cop @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@, a mere twenty four hours from @@HIS@@ retirement. "Police work is about knocking on doors, putting boot leather to the streets and pulling over wronguns. There's more to fighting crime than stopping criminals you know, it's about making people feel safe knowing that there's a copper on the corner should the worse happen. Put more officers on the beat and cut out this high tech nonsense if you want to see results."
[effect] god knows on this one. Brain gone sleepy bye.

[option]"No, you've both got it wrong!" shouts criminologist and amateur botanist @@RANDOMNAME@@. "If we want to cut down on crime, we need to tackle the causes of crime. We can use this software, sure, but we should be using it to pinpoint high-crime areas, undertaking major urban redevelopment and promoting outreach programs to at-risk youth!"
[effect] bulldozers and construction crews have replaced police cars in high-crime areas

[option]"This is going to be something of a hard sell over here, granted" notes your Minister for Trade, slyly pocketing your office supplies. "Mind you, there's plenty of nations out there, take Blackacre for instance, that'd love to get their hands on this kind of tech. They're always wanting to keep closer tabs on political dissidents and someone's going to make a few @@CURRENCYPLURAL@@ out of it. It might as well be us, right?"
[effect]

Premise: At a dazzlingly anticipated press conference, @@RANDOMFIRSTNAME@@ Rosen opened a timestamped envelope to reveal that experimental computer program V.A.L.I.S had correctly predicted the criminal behaviour of nineteen of the twenty ringleaders in last Thursday's post-@@ANIMAL@@ball riot. Using metadata gathered from citizens' social media activity, spending habits and permanent school records, the new VI seems to be able to predict criminal behaviour with startling accuracy.

Validity: Some degree of authoritarianism/law and order spending. Must have teh interwebs. Must have some degree of scientific advancement.

[option]"Just think, @@LEADER@@," enthuses brand spokesperson Rachel Rosen with a slightly unsettling smile. "This is just a trial run with what limited data we could pull on those living in the area. Imagine what we could accomplish with access to the more... sensitive information the government holds? Think of the lives that would be saved if we could predict, to within a reasonable margin of error, criminal acts before they occur?"
[effect] criminals are often distinguished through their suspicious lack of online presence

[option]"This is bloody ridiculous!" exclaims veteran cop @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@, a mere twenty four hours from @@HIS@@ retirement. "Police work is about knocking on doors, putting boot leather to the streets and pulling over wronguns. There's more to fighting crime than stopping criminals you know, it's about making people feel safe knowing that there's a copper on the corner should the worse happen. Put more officers on the beat and cut out this high tech nonsense if you want to see results."
[effect] god knows on this one. Brain gone sleepy bye.

[option]"No, you've both got it wrong!" shouts criminologist and amateur botanist @@RANDOMNAME@@. "If we want to cut down on crime, we need to tackle the causes of crime. Start reaching out to our deprived inner-city areas, fund more youth centers and keep our public spaces clean and well lit." (THIS NEEDS MORE)
[effect]brilliant displays of street art are whitewashed over by government employees

[option]"This is going to be something of a hard sell over here, granted" notes your Minister for Trade, slyly pocketing your office supplies. "Mind you, there's plenty of nations out there, take Blackacre for instance, that'd love to get their hands on this kind of tech. They're always wanting to keep closer tabs on political dissidents and someone's going to make a few @@CURRENCYPLURAL@@ out of it. It might as well be us, right?"
[effect] [u]authoritarian regimes across the globe give thanks to the nation's

[Jutsa]

Hello, Caracasus!

I suppose this is along the lines of "you scratch my back, I scratch yours". Review time.

The Title/Issue/Validity:
I don't quite get the title, although I imagine it references something or is a saying I'm not familiar with. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

post-@@ANIMAL@@Ball riot.

Again, not too familiar with this. Is "Ball" capitalized and connected to @@ANIMAL@@? I imagine it is, although I did want to just double-check.
One final note: Should there be some degree of scientific advancement for this issue, as well?[/quote]

Option 1 looks good, moving on~

Option 2:

twenty four hours from @@HIS@@ retirement.

twenty-four*

There's more to fighting crime than stopping criminals you know, it's about[...]

I think a comma after criminals and a semicolon or break after know would do better.

it's about making people feel safe knowing that there's a copper on the corner should the worse happen.

Being in a relatively safe and rural community to the point where having a state prison nearby doesn't seem alarming in the slightest,
I can't say that seeing policemen everywhere makes me feel particularly safe.
Oh, but that's nothing to fix - just wanted to interject that.

[effect]god knows on this one. Brain gone sleepy bye.

Maybe my interjected note would be a possible inspiration to your effect line? I'm honestly not sure about this one either.

I also wanted to mention that, whilst I do like this option, it doesn't seem to argue much that this machinery can, while not too often, still often-enough result in innocents being imprisoned,
which I believe is a fair bit of the argument against them. I do get that the "put policemen to work" idea's a good one - I just think it could maybe use a bit more of the reasoning is all.
Up to you, of course.

Option 3:

"This is going to be something of a hard sell over here, granted"

Hmm... I'm not too familiar with "granted" used in this case. Perhaps it was a remnant, and that's why there's no comma after it?
If it is, indeed, able to be used in this context, then just a comma after granted.

slyly pocketing your office supplies.

"Mind you, there's plenty of nations

there's should probably be there are.

tabs on political dissidents and someone's

Comma after dissidents.

[effect] welcome to suggestions.

Again, I'm afraid I'm kinda dry. I'm not great with effect lines.

Edit: Accidentally clicked "submit" instead of "preview". Teehee...

Overall, I think this is a very good issue, and I'm very glad that you made one about this. Good luck, Caracasus.

[Trotterdam]

What's a VI?

Some of you might have noticed that it's about 95% accurate. So is it better to let ten innocent men go free than one innocent man get punished?

Might want to bring more attention to that if it's supposed to be the question. In particular, was the old way of catching criminals more reliable? False accusations and convictions are still things that happen.

[Caracasus]

Justa:

The Title/Issue/Validity:
I don't quite get the title, although I imagine it references something or is a saying I'm not familiar with. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Is "Ball" capitalized and connected to @@ANIMAL@@? I imagine it is, although I did want to just double-check.
One final note: Should there be some degree of scientific advancement for this issue, as well?

Title is a reference to A Scanner Darkly, a novel set in a near-future authoritarian state where police officers trace almost everything you do having been given vast overreaching powers. From the novel A Scanner Darkly:

“What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me - into us - clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.”

Other names, etc. are all PKD references. I'm kinda envious of you as you aren't familiar with the book and get to read it for the first time...

Good call on the other parts there.

Thanks for the SPG feedback as well. Wrote this while the idea was still fresh in my head.

Trotterdam:

A VI is a weak AI basically - as far as I understand it. It is capable of learning etc. but not sapient. I wanted to draw a distinction between the two, though I think I'll change it to program now.

As for your other comment, thanks! I think I'll bring that to the fore.

[Caracasus]

Hmm. Considering here.

Either I make the new tech and possible arrest of people for crimes they haven't committed the main focus of this and re-write it...

Or I pose it as a more insidious dilemma - along the lines I've started on.

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

Relevant to this, I think it would be much more insidious and creepy to try to predict who will commit a violent crime based on people's genetic profile.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =127888976

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Either I make the new tech and possible arrest of people for crimes they haven't committed the main focus of this and re-write it...

You've just inspired a shower of ideas in my head that may or may not be useful here.

An issue could ask whether it's okay to use racial profiling to increase investigation and surveillance of ethnic groups who are known to have a higher incidence of crime in their communities. You could have Pre-Crime detectives talking about it being simple statistics.

Name of the issue...?

The Ethnic Minority Report.

I may go and write this, unless you feel it is stepping on your toes.

[Caracasus]

Sounds great!

No, it wouldn't be stepping on toes at all. This issue is already going to be a struggle to tie together narrative threads and ideas without introducing the whole racial profiling thing.

[Trotterdam]

[u][option]"No, you've both got it wrong!" shouts criminologist and amateur botanist @@RANDOMNAME@@. "If we want to cut down on crime, we need to tackle the causes of crime. Start reaching out to our deprived inner-city areas, fund more youth centers and keep our public spaces clean and well lit." (THIS NEEDS MORE)

The computer program can still be useful here. If the program can calculate which factors lead people to crime, then you can use that theory to figure out how to prevent people from being drawn to crime, rather than punishing the would-be criminals.

[Ransium]

A slightly different take, but something that's a little less science fiction-ey is genes being linked to crime. I think there have been preliminary findings on the validity of this. To me this is even more interesting because you absolutely cannot control your genes, rather than social media etc.

[Australian rePublic]

1. Option 1- Effect for option 1, they already do that
2. Option 2- any reason why you can't have both?
3. Option 3- it's not that there's a lack of street lights' it's the intentional vandalism of street lights

[Caracasus]

[u][option]"No, you've both got it wrong!" shouts criminologist and amateur botanist @@RANDOMNAME@@. "If we want to cut down on crime, we need to tackle the causes of crime. Start reaching out to our deprived inner-city areas, fund more youth centers and keep our public spaces clean and well lit." (THIS NEEDS MORE)

The computer program can still be useful here. If the program can calculate which factors lead people to crime, then you can use that theory to figure out how to prevent people from being drawn to crime, rather than punishing the would-be criminals.

Thanks. Good idea here - though my concern would be that it'd fast become the "right" option.

A slightly different take, but something that's a little less science fiction-ey is genes being linked to crime. I think there have been preliminary findings on the validity of this. To me this is even more interesting because you absolutely cannot control your genes, rather than social media etc.

Considered this, however I think I'd be stepping on the toes of CWA's proposed Ethnic Minority Report issue....

1. Option 1- Effect for option 1, they already do that
2. Option 2- any reason why you can't have both?
3. Option 3- it's not that there's a lack of street lights' it's the intentional vandalism of street lights

1 - True. If you've got a better effect line, I'd be really glad to hear it.
2 - Because it's NS. In NS you can't have the reasonable middle ground.
3 - Yes and no... besides, thinking of crafting this into redesigning cities to be more open and less crime friendly.

[Australian rePublic]

Effect for option 1- how about something like "unsuspecting criminals are often caught by posting their knife collections on social media" or something like that