Fools + crimes + technology = digital natural selection?

Mellow greetings Good Ol' Three Faithful Readers, I hope you are having a day full of joy-joy.

A few days ago I saw Demolition Man on some DirecTV channel. I must say that now, 16 years after it was originally released, the movie looks very anachronic and far-fetched to the point of laughter - though oddly prophetic in some instances. Taco Bell is not the supreme franchise, Dahmer is dead, Schwarzenegger has not become President of the US, no phaser guns, profanity is now more accepted, we still have sex the old fashioned way, some "bad-for-you" stuff is still considered legal and we still use toilet paper - thank God for small favors!

One of the things that stood out to me as particularly funny was the concept of a pacifist police force. When Simon Phoenix -Wesley Snipe's character - goes on his first "non-sanctioned life termination" spree, one of the cops - I believe it was a young Rob Schneider in an uncredited role, way before he turned gigolo - says: "We're police officers! We're not trained to handle this kind of violence!" I laughed. Just before that, Phoenix repeatedly says "bad words", to which a Morale Statute Machine replies: "Your repeated violation of the Verbal Morality Statute has caused me to notify the San Angeles Police Department. Please remain where you are for a reprimand."

Well, how very BDS&M of you! Of course I'll stay right here to be reprimanded... not! San Angeles had been turned into a boring, Japanese fashioned Utopia thanks to some self-help book ideas taken to the extreme by Dr. Raymond Cocteau as well as a spice of Big Brother thrown in just in case. I must say I laughed, hard; the idea that somehow people would be either responsible enough to stay in place and be accountable for their actions or that this whole big RFID system to locate people whatever they are and reprimand them was too much for me not to laugh at.

Then, today, I find a particular piece of news about some kids putting pictures of themselves vandalizing a public pool. What the hell?! And it is not the only case, there have been many others of people posting the crimes they have or are about to commit in Facebook or MySpace profiles; and damn it, I would not be surprised if some idiot even Twittered it just as he does the crime! Someone there in the back corner actually wrote a very detailed blog about his Grand Theft Auto project. Bummer. We might not need police in the future, people will just turn in.

So maybe, just maybe, we don't need no stinking Dr. Cocteau to come and mind wipe us, we are doing it ourselves. I am really surprised to the point that I do not know if I should laugh or cry about it; will face-palm about it for sure! I understand we all want to share the cool stuff we do on our life through this magnificent technology called The Internet, be if we do something illegal I guess it is best if we leave it for ourselves. Maybe I should blame in on the Joker. People want to emulate this "better kind of criminal" the world needs and publish their evil schemes in order to inject some chaos into this world. Yeah. Right.

Here's some food for thought on how not to use Facebook status.

On the other hand, I believe in the notions of a self-regulating society, pretty much in the same vein as Wikipedia or some mature - if rare - forums out there regulate their own users towards the common good and betterment of the community. This comes to prove that some people out there are willing to let authorities know when they find an illegal activity going on; and though the idea that all these camera-phones are out there eying on us might seems scary, at least the regulation is actually done by us, the people, not some tyrant government's idea of right or wrong. With that said, I do hope the Twitters can find Mr. Armstrong's bike.

As for me, well, I am off to commit serious crimes against the post-apocalyptic Washington D.C.'s Wasteland's population armed with my Pip-Boy and a teddy bear loaded Rock-It Launcher.