Comparison

I had a thought the other day and I decided to put it in print.

Our whole existence is a system of comparing one thing to another. How many times a day do you use the words better or worse? Not good or bad.

For instance, if you find today as being a bad day, that's probably because another day was better and this one sucks in comparison. The point I'm trying to make is that if you never had a better day, would today really have been so bad?

I read a sci-fi story* once about a group of people who thought the world was ending (WWII) and got into their bomb shelter. After a few months they ran out of food and started living off what they could find in the earth. They started excavating rooms around the bomb shelter, being very careful not to dig up so the nuclear fallout doesn't affect them. They were under the impression that the world a few hundred meters above their heads was a wasteland.

A few generations of "earth people" passed. Parents told children of how wonderful the world was before the bomb and about the sun and the moon and the miracle of open air rock concerts (sorry, had to do that...). It became like myths or religious stories. The later generations had no idea what the outside world looked like, and thus didn't experience their existence as a bad thing. It's simply how things are.

You could even go as far as saying they couldn't conceive of a world where there's NOTHING above you, just air. To them it was scientifically impossible. Their senile grandmother told them that she'd seen it with her own eyes, but how could it be?

Now you're probably thinking "How could they live like that?" The reason they could was because the younger generation had nothing to compare it with. They couldn't think how it could possibly be better than this.

Next we take modern life. We cannot conceive teleportation. To us it is scientifically impossible. TV shows and movies tell that it is possible, some scientists have seen it with their own eyes (although in microscopic proportions with singular molecules), but how could it be?

So, did I get you thinking?

While I was writing this blog I received an e-mail on almost the same topic. A headline on Slashdot states that, and I quote, "Richard Berk, a University of Pennsylvania criminologist, has worked with authorities to develop a software tool that predicts who will commit homicide."

Allow me to remind you of a movie called Minority Report:
"Minority Report is set in Washington, D.C. during the year 2054. Thanks to three "precogs" and technology built around their ability to see murders before they happen, the city has gone six years without a homicide. The group making use of the precogs is called the "Department of Pre-Crime"; the police officers and detectives within the department are empowered to act on their foreknowledge, arresting people who are about to commit a murder."

Taking into consideration the topic of my blog, is it really so far-fetched?

Notes:
* Side story in Sayonara Bar by Susan Barker