Technology as conscience

A speculative thought.

This arises from a strand of a conversation and from a correlation.

The strand of conversation centered on the speculation: Does the emerging total connectedness of people and things serve as substitute for the historical notion of an omnipotent God? In traditional theology there is a God who is omnipotent and judging. You manage your thoughts, behavior and actions because you know that you are under constant and eternal observation. The secular version is of course:

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town

He's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

In many countries, particularly Europe, the population has lost their faith in God. Many are losing their faith in consumerism.

So who is there, in such cultures, that provide the threat of coercion or enforcement so often necessary to prompt us to do what we know is right.

Perhaps it is the connected internet. Who is watching you through you phone or computer cam? Who is reading your email? Who knows what websites you visit? It is all knowable and, increasingly, accessible. I have seen over the years, increasing discretion in company email correspondence. People value email for its clarity and connectedness but now are usually far more responsible in terms of what they communicate. They are more careful. I think politicians are also becoming somewhat more discrete.

So my question is, Is the connectedness and access of people beginning to encourage the kinds of behaviors that were once reinforced by religion?

So that's one strand. The other relates to a correlation.

The peak year for violent crime rates in the US was circa 1992-4 depending on which crime you are looking at. The declines have been pretty dramatic since then, typically averaging about 50%.

That is the time period which saw the shift from batch processing mainframes to distributed mini and micro computers, the emergence of the web and the internet as an integral part of daily life, and the saturation of the market with smart phones. Everyone is everywhere always on.

Police cruise the city with devices reading license plates and matching them to warrant records in real time. Drivers licenses have bar codes. Most police departments have some form of CrimeStat with live prioritization and processing. There are neighborhood apps that allow a whole neighborhood to serve as distributed law enforcement eyes and ears. Cars and computers have self-tracking devices.

Recently, as I sat at my office at home, I began to receive a series prompts from my NextDoor app which allows neighbors in a neighborhood to communicate real time. There's a suspicious white male with a teardrop tattoo soliciting donations. The police have been called. The pings followed him as he progressed down the street. Then the police car rolled up. All real time, distributed observation, communication, and response.

What's a traditional hood to do?

Since the 1990s we have been locking up an inordinate number of people. But it appears that we are slowly getting better at locking up only those who present a legitimate threat to society.

Given that technology is enabling us to function to some small degree as an omniscient distributed being, has the internet and smart phones created a mechanism for encouraging and policing civic virtue in the fashion that churches once did?