Sci-fi Writer Elizabeth Moon Believes Everyone Should Be Chipped

Bob the Super Hamste writes "The BBC has an opinion piece from science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon who believes that everyone should be chipped or barcoded at birth. Her reasoning is that it would prevent identification mistakes and even allow soldiers to identify combatants from non-combatants. Her comments came as part of a discussion on future wars hosted by the BBC World Service."

I sided with Elizabeth before...

[Nova Express]

...when she was attacked by the FailFandom brigade for comments ever-so-mildly critical of Islam [battleswarmblog.com].

But I strongly oppose this. A government with the power to barcode everyone at birth is the sort of government powerful enough to commit just about any abuse of its citizens. And the well-connected will still be able to get data related to their barcode altered for their benefit.

I'll pass on the Panopticon society, thank you. And strong private property laws are the first step from preventing it from happening.

Because it's so hard to change

[Qubit]

a chip or a barcode on the skin...

oh, wait.

Hold on folks

[Dyinobal]

I'll likely get down modded for this like crazy, but I think everyone is over reacting a huge amount. I actually listened to the clips and it is clear that Elizabeth is talking about a hypothetical situation. She isn't saying she advocates chipping everyone with ID chips in the real world. She was discussing a fictional hypothetical situation she even states it "if I were empress of the universe". Plus she does discuss, the privacy implications, and it's very reasoned. Her main objective was for some sort of method to identify Friend of Foe on the battlefield. She even admits to draw backs and such. You guys are acting like she is some raving lunatic wanting to destroy your lives.

Re:Elizabeth Moon

[iphinome]

You might be interested to discover that she wasn't actually advocating chipping people. She was asked for wild ideas, not good ideas. It was discussed on her blog when I, myself took her seriously and called her out. http://www.paksworld.com/blog/?p=1574#comments [paksworld.com]

Re:Elizabeth Moon

[Macthorpe]

What the hell are you talking about? She was invited to a radio show where they discussed theoretical ways of dealing with futuristic combat. That is exactly where people should throw things to see what sticks. Further to that, she didn't write anything about this. The article was written by the BBC about the show she was in.

The problem here is you've been suckered in by yet another inflammatory article on Slashdot that mentions her suggestion as if it's her core belief, but then fails to mention she later admits it wouldn't work.

This was a debate.

[Gonoff]

I heard the programme. I get it as a podcast.

Someone is given 60 seconds to make a suggestion that would change the world. Has nobody else never had to take part in a debate? This is a mental exercise or entertainment not a serious statement of intent. The previous week, the speaker suggested that as people took too many crummy digital pictures, we should all be limited to one picture per day.

Go and listen to the article and get some context before criticising what we can all agree would be a seriously bad idea.