Friday, March 30, 2012

The Salem Syndrome

Television drama, insofar as much of it is confined to cop / lawyer shows, has adopted a theme that is familiar to anyone who has knowledge of the events in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692.

In a television series, it is the obsession of a given character in a series, although the character in the ensemble who takes this role may or may not change from one episode to the next. It is the obsession of these characters that justify whatever procedures (or failure to follow procedures) lead to the conclusion of the case. This accounts for the myriad episodes where any normal police officer would be fired or face charges themselves, or a lawyer be disbarred and/or charged with a crime. The obsession (although this would be called "commitment") then provides a putative suspension of disbelief where the viewer can then provide justification for acts on the part of the protagonists that are basically unjustified, even where the law is violated

In 1692, it was the obsession and hysteria of several teenage girls that provided sufficient suspension of disbelief in the court to send 19 men and women to the gallows. We have conveniently labeled the acts of those who lived over three centuries ago as stemming from ignorance, hysteria, and a host of vague hypotheses. In our day, however, we have become no less susceptible to the belief that commitment in and of itself can not only move mountains, but should supersede even law if only one feels strongly enough.

"I would give the devil himself the benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."- A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Numbers for the New Century Revisited

I'd like to turn in the direction of innovative solutions to the ever-burgeoning numbers of people. How about Birthright Lotteries? This is a concept originated by Larry Niven, in his Known Space universe, and you'll find some discussion of it on the Internet, although the term has been highjacked and turned to unrelated discussions by some.

I'm not going to discuss it at length. Even convicted criminals can't be excluded from the Birthright Lottery. What's the penalty if you circumvent getting your birth control implants? Well, then the ARMs go on a Mother Hunt....and the parents are executed, their child lives, thus maintaining zero growth. Have you a license to breed in the Lottery, and want more than one kid? Put your ticket in the pot and go in the arena and fight for it. The losers do the subtraction for the extra kid you have.

Grim? Not nearly as grim as where we're headed......the figures say world population will top out at 10+ billion. How long does anyone think that can be sustained? No one took Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb) very seriously in 1968 when his timeline proved to be far too short, but that book has always stuck with me, and it seems more relevant than ever in 2012. Population control by coercion has always been shunned as politically unacceptable. More acceptable than the inexorable depletion of irreplaceable resourcs and mass starvation?