I Now Nominate Ms. Cleo for Pre-crime Division

    I would like to first state that if the Precognitives are to be deemed in any society as the “Know all’s”, along with being the predictors of major crimes such as murder, at minimum they should all have to reach a 100% consensus before any actions are taken upon citizens. In the film Minority Report, Agatha, Arthur, and Dasher, along with their visions, singlehandedly had the power to cause a person within the D.C. Metropolitan area to be locked away, for crimes such as murder, or even premeditated murder, based off a future prediction in time. Now, I call these visions predictions because as I already stated, the visions were not all reached by consensus, and therefore these visions essentially could be labeled as guesses. This concept of stopping major crimes before they happen doesn’t quite sound realistic to me, simply for the fact that it was pointed out in the movie that the three Precognitives didn’t always share the same vision(s) in regards to murders taking place. Also, since this system of predicting murders can be finagled by corruption, would someone really be okay with the fact that their freedom may be taken away for life because of a fluke prediction?

     With this concept of predicting people’s future holding as the law of the land, couldn’t any prediction be just as good as the next? If this is the case, I certainly nominate Ms. Cleo to join the precognitive initiatives, since there was once a time when her predictions would taken as “Law” by many believers of her future visions, only to be debunked after finding out that it was all just a money scam, that was essentially altering many peoples lives for the worst. I don’t truly feel that one individual who knows nothing about you can “See” your future, and even furthermore, I don’t think that the words coming out of those same people’s mouths should be taken seriously, but, “To each his own”.

     Now let’s examine what these types and kinds of powers would mean in 2013. Personally I feel that in today’s society; too many people are locked up without a fair conviction and trial, and sometimes with no evidence against them at all! This generally happens due to profiling, and I would have to wonder realistically how many more jails and prisons would have to be constructed to house all those who would be convicted on the word of these kinds of future predictions. Even worst, this system of prediction in the movie was shown to be flawed in the sense that it could be manipulated. In a sense, I do see some correlations to our justice system in America, it just goes by another name.

     Since the rate of murders in the film was at an eye raising low, I can see some beneficial aspects of precognitive predictions, but if this film was taking place in this day and time, I surely hope that I would never have a false future prediction placed against me, especially knowing that it was essentially just based off of a guess.

  If future telling is the way to go, Ms. Cleo, along with any Tarot card reader would probably be some of the most powerful, and influential people within our society, let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.

       

2+2=5

Wow. Mind boggling. Terrifying.

Those are the three main thoughts running through my head after finishing Book I of 1984. We had a discussion about similar things once in AP U.S. History in high school. We discussed how many people just accept what they hear without questioning what is being said, and how this makes us as a society rather gullible. This gullibility can be seen in the citizens of Oceania.

During that class period we also discussed how easy it could be for people to alter history and how history is written by the “winners”. (Such as with WWII and the camps in Europe AND the US) In Oceania there is the Ministry of Truth, which alters history to match the Party’s version or vision of past events. A Ministry of Peace, which wages war because fighting comes before peace – or so we are told. The Ministry of Plenty, which plans economic shortages but tells everyone that we are doing great. And finally there is the Ministry of Love, which I assume is where all the corrupt ideas and actions of the government are kept hidden. All of these ministries are frightening and can be seen in society today. Oceania's slogan: “WAR IS PEACE; FREEDOM IS SLAVERY; IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” kind matches along what happens in the U.S. We go to war to “make” peace. We “free” countries by enslaving them. And the people that are ignorant of corruption, as the proles supposedly are, are relatively happy. ← Ignorance is bliss, right? 

The people of this society are so controlled, so brainwashed that they cannot even have private thoughts. I should rephrase that, private thought that are anti-government. If I feared being caught and imprisoned every time I had a thought that was against the current political leaders, I would live in constant fear of being caught. They can't even have their own, individual private thoughts. They will be told on by their young spies. The kids are raised to tell on people that are doing “wrong”. I remember being raised to not be a tattle-tale (which is what these spies are). It was looked down upon.

I don't know, this is by far the worst “utopia” we have read. I could have lived and been satisfied in the World State, but Oceania is too corrupt for me. I think our own politics are corrupt to the point that I think we should just do away with political parties or political associations. And Oceania seem twenty-thousand times worst. 

Image 1: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/754538/Why-Britain-is-Great-Pub-Landlord-Al-Murray-Ignore-lecturers.html

Image 2: http://kairisoosaar.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/pr-and-propaganda/

Image 3: http://tigersoftware.com/TigerBlogs/June-13-2008/index.html