On “Pre-Crime”

It’s been a while since I posted something here.  But, I’ve been distracted.  What can I say?

(WARNING:  The following article is not authoritative in any sense.  This is entirely armchair philosophizing and borderline navel-gazing that may in fact make no sense whatsoever to someone actually educated in the given fields.  There are minimal citations and only a shallow depth of research into the theories and science involved.  This is less a blueprint for actually creating a system as described, and more of a bare surface-scratching way of looking at a single way we could end up with a kind of “Pre-Crime” system based on technology that is somewhat plausible.  I was also somewhat sleep-deprived when I started.)

Let’s get down to business.  The idea of Predictive Criminology, Predictive Policing, or in pop-culture terms, “Pre-Crime” is the topic.  As it stands today, Predictive Policing is confined to sending police to patrol areas where crime is considered likely to happen in a nebulous sense based on aggregate criminal patterns.  A more specific application is most well-described in the film “Minority Report”, in which a section of the District of Columbia’s Police Department implements a system with predicts crime before it happens.  In the movie, the Pre-Crime unit draws on the abilities of three ‘pre-cogs’, who have the ability to see the future.  Specifically, they have the ability to forsee murders before they happen.  Using images from these visions, the Pre-Crime unit determines the time and location of a predicted murder and arrive on the scene before it takes place, arresting the pre-criminal before he/she can kill.

On Death

(Parts of this post are modified from a recent post on my new blog, Casa de Cass, which can be read here)

Yes, “On Death”.  That simple, that plain.  Though, I’m not going to necessarily tackle to topic of Death itself (something for a later post, I think).  This post is kind of how I dealt with Death recently.  Because it’s been coming at me from every direction, and as a result, plans to blitz through tons of writing these past few weeks stalled out and my initiative and motivation were squashed.

What I’ve Been Up To

If you’d had me in your blog reader or as a friend on Facebook or whatever, you might have noticed I’m back to writing again after a very long silence.  So, I’m sure someone who has been checking for activity so long might wonder what I’ve been up to.  Well, a lot, actually.  And I’ve got a very good reason for why my blog writing and novel writing went to a trickle, really.

On Time

For this article, I’m requesting that the reader set aside their preconceptions– I kind of always do, but this time, I feel I have to be quite vocal about the importance of this to understanding where I am going with it.  In this case, I’m going to be discussing something that really doesn’t seem to be thought about or discussed openly, even in some of the most avant-garde and bohemian philosophical circles.  Maybe the issue is considered settled among them, but I’ve not quite had it explained to me well.

The subject is Time itself.

An Open Letter to the World (WARNING: Rambling Manifesto Contained Herein)

(This post started one way, and mutated and mutated– it was supposed to be more structured than it ended up, and what it ended up being was essentially a stream-of-consciousness reflection on the state of the world.  As a result, internal consistency may not be entirely ensured– I jump from place to place, and quite frankly, I didn’t get any sleep before I write this.  Take it for what it is, and read it when you have a long amount of time to spend.  About halfway through it, I think I have a bit of a religious experience in there, and that’s why I go on at length about the value of humanity there.  I’ll probably do more like this in the future.)

Dear World,

What can I say?  We’ve got a lot of problems.  Not between you and me, necessarily, but I mean… the World’s problems become my problems because I have to live here.  I don’t feel like blaming anyone for anything.  I don’t think any individual causes any single problem, but I think we all (including myself) at least contribute in some way.

On Going to Washington, D.C.

Well, I don’t know how to say this, but something in me just kind of snapped.  I’m sick and tired of feeling helpless, of not being able to get my voice out to the people who can make a difference.  So, I’ve decided to take things directly to Washington.  I’m gathering donations and selling what things I can to get up to D.C. as soon as possible to talk to as many people in congress as possible, and maybe even the President.

On Sports

There is a story behind how I became the Sports Editor of The West Georgian, when I myself have very little experience as a participant in sports or similar activities.  I figure it’s interesting and serves as a good springboard for talking about sports themselves.

This is my third year working for The West Georgian, the student newspaper for this university.  I’ve been a staff writer and an Ombudsman (abuse sponge) and worked hard because I believe in the mission of our paper:  To provide news to the students and to provide a venue in which students can get experience delivering the news.

On Love

A facebook friend wrote something today which caught my eye, about loving people.  I thought to myself about love, and what it means to me.  It’s a beautiful thing, really, and I try to say that with full awareness of how clichéd it can sound.  Love is something that I think some people have a tendency to misunderstand, mostly because of the kind of society we live in with hypersexualization and objectification, and the odd way we treat the topic in general.

On Leadership

One of the things I don’t tend to talk on too much is the concept of leadership.  The reason being is that I don’t want people to assume that I am a person who seeks out leadership positions.  It is not that I lack the ambition necessary to be a leader, but rather that I see leadership differently than a good number of the people who seek to assume leadership regularly.  I believe that my perceptions of leadership have been shaped mostly by the examples of my parents, all of them (my mother, father, stepmother and stepfather), and as a result I look at leadership not as a privilege, but as a responsibility.