Blog 13

Living in a world where there’s no privacy and law enforcement always intruding your personal space can be disturbing.  A world where police are considered of doing “Gods” work, where you can stop crimes before it happens and put them in a mental prison, which is called Precrime; is what it’s about from the movie Minority Report.   Precrime fights criminals which are taken care of by advanced securities that are doing God’s work.

            Waking up in an environment where crime doesn’t exist and which law enforcements are constantly budding into your house, can feel like living in an illusion.   John Anderton, a character from Minority Report was a victim from the Precrime society where the law tried to cease him from committing a crime.  Stopping criminals with a Precrime technology seem too good to be true, and I think our law should invest in this.  Most people die almost every day because of murder.  It upsets me to see when kids get caught in this violence and die from rape, gun shots, stabbing and strangling.  Acknowledging that crime don’t exist in this world can be comforting, which can be a safe environment for kids to grow up in.  I think Precrime shouldn’t be all about murders, it should prevent prostitution, drug lords, suicides and homicides.  Precrime can change criminals act before they take their actions; just like what Anderton did.  When he found out that he was a victim of this Precime, it showed that his action was to kill Leo Crow who murdered his son Sean.   It almost seemed like he was afraid to get in those mental prison; and to avoid this he changed his action and didn’t murder Leo.  Precrime can be a way where it can scare criminals and chose not to do it.  An article “Free will and determinism in the world of Minority Report” by Michael Huemer gives a great example of how Precrime can help determinism stop your actions, which Anderton did. 

            Interpreting and analyzing multiple reactions to this movie, people thought that the Precrime society were doing God’s work and by stopping criminals in advanced was like living in hell on earth because us humans were taking over and as if God didn’t exist anymore.  Huemer explained that If God sees that we were going to take this certain action, which we know for a fact that this action is going to happen; but there’s another theory which explains that determinism can change people’s (criminals) choices.  Huemer states “determinism requires that all one’s actions be causally determined, but not that the causes be entirely external and not internal.” Personally I feel that this statement is saying that actions are taken by your choice; and because this Precrime technology showed your actions of murdering someone, Anderton’s consciences took over and made his decisions and not murder Crow.  Precrime can benefit our society which can make criminals use the knowledge of determinism; which can block them from taking any vitality. 

            Our country might have the largest security force but why is that people are dying from left to right.  Almost every story on the news is about criminals escaping from a hit and run and from a shooting.  Precrime should exist even if our privacy is no longer available, I would rather give up my privacy just so that people won’t have to worry about their lives whenever they go out.