From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Wed Sep 04 2002 - 21:17:18 MDT
Jeff Davis wrote:
>With the growing ubiquity of wireless devices, even
>without devices specifically devoted to surveillance,
>society would be saturated with 'surveillance capable
>resources': webcams, still cams, videocams, cell phone
>cams, cell phone/conventional audio...
>
Ja, but what I really had in mind is saving tax dollars by having
amateur yahoos carry part of the load in crime fighting.
Consider a sorta related case. If you hike in the forest, you
have seen those fire towers they have strategically located on
the tops of certain mountains. Forest service workers sit up
there all day with their hats with the four dents and watch for
smoke columns, which they report.
This is an actual job.
But then some smart Department of the Interior bureaucrat
came up with an idea. She thought Hey, I bet the proletariat
would do that job voluntarily. This of course was a silly
understatement, for proles will not only do this job for nothing,
they will actually pay money to do it. So now some forests
out west have fire observation towers that you can rent for
25 bucks a day, complete with bed, phone and fire spotting
gear.
I know about this, for I am one of the silly proles who
spent 25 bucks a night to camp in one of these. We had
a hell of a good time! Out there camping in this fire tower,
pretending to be actual rangers, with a negative salary.
It was a lotta fun, and a very restful and peaceful vacation.
On the last night we were there, we sat on the observation
deck as the twilight faded to total darkness. In the gentle
starlight, the only sign of civilization for many miles was a
faint red point of light, far in the distance. Perhaps it was the
dying campfire embers of some lonely urban refugee, fleeing
to the mountains for peaceful solace, seeking a profoundly
meaningful wilderness experience, communing quietly with
nature among the noble firs and majestic pines. Or a
cathouse.
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