RoboPessimism : First Use Of The Word Robot Involved Robots Wiping Out Humanity

A simple but visually compelling, fact-rich example of a modern graphic educational tool. You are more likely to remember distinct facts from this, than from wadding through a 1200 word text book entry.

From OnlineSchools via @rod3000.


Via: Online Schools

Let the historians of the future take note, former police commissioner Mick Keelty tried to warn us of the coming robotic criminal underground when we still had time to do something about it. Did we listen? No, we did not :

Technology such as cloned part-robot humans used by organised crime gangs pose the greatest future challenge to police....

Mr Keelty said the police force would have to use experts from the private sector to fight tech-savvy organised criminals, because it lacked the necessary skills.

...he identified the use of robotics and cloning as future challenges.

"Our environmental scanning tells us that even with some of the cloning of human beings - not necessarily in Australia but in those countries that are going to allow it - you could have potentially a cloned part-person, part-robot," he said.

"You could (also) have technology acting at the direction of a human being, but the human being being distanced considerably from the actual crime scene."

It's only a matter of time before a bank robber gets shot and bleeds blood and battery acid.

Fortunately, Australians are already being trained in how to deal with hordes of RoboBarbarians On Segways :

Police Association Warns Against Fast Introduction Of Harsher Ant-Terror Laws

Many in the Australian media are still picking their jaws back up off the ground following a speech by Mick Keelty, the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, which many in the media claimed was a barely disguised call for a ban to be imposed that would block news media from reporting on terrorism cases.

Mick Keelty :

Call me old fashioned, but I don't believe anyone accused of, or charged with, a crime can receive a fair trial if the matter is tested in the court of public opinion before being appropriately tested in a court of law.

It will always be a challenge to get the equilibrium just right, but let's not forget that it is these freedoms that we want to enjoy and protect for the whole community.

(At times when) I find myself not in complete agreement with the conclusions reached by some members of the press, I try to remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said: "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."

Now the chief executive of the Australian Federal Police Association has issued a warning of his own - that Australian citizens, police and politicians enough time to get their heads around the harsh changes to freedom and liberty in Australia imposed by the former Howard government before new, and more extreme anti-terror laws are introduced :

Echoing the fears of civil libertarians across Australia, AFPA chief executive officer Jim Torr warned against the rapid adoption of new counter-terrorist powers.

"We are of the view that the counter-terrorism legislation is so wide ranging as it stands, and so new to policing and concepts of policing, that any further changes to it should proceed with caution."

Mr Torr warned that the counter-terrorism legislation already introduced in Australia needed digesting before anything new was added.

"It involves concepts that are alien to decades and decades of policing, that is, taking a person into custody without immediately taking them before a magistrate or a bail court or a judge," he said.

"And that is new to policing; it's entirely new."

Climate Change Tops Terror As Chief Security Risk To Australia

Australian Federal Police commissioner cited the fallout from apocalyptic levels of climate change as the greatest security threat to the nation in the coming years. Far worse than anything terrorists can unleash.

The threat of terror, whilst real, takes a backseat to the destruction, death toll and tide of human misery that may be wrought in the region by massive crop failures, rising sea levels and all the other horrors of cataclysmic climate change.

From The Australian :

....Keelty described how climate refugees "in their millions" could create a national security emergency for Australia.

...he described a scenario in which China was unable to feed its vast population.

Law enforcement agencies would struggle to cope with global warming's "potential to wreak havoc, cause more deaths and pose national security issues like we've never seen before", Mr Keelty said.

"It is anticipated the world will experience severe extremes in weather patterns, from rising global temperatures to rising sea levels," he warned.

"We could see a catastrophic decline in the availability of fresh water. Crops could fail, disease could be rampant and flooding might be so frequent that people, en masse, would be on the move.

"Even if only some and not all of this occurs, climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century."

Mr Keelty said the implications for China were especially alarming. By 2040, with global temperatures surging towards a predicted 3C rise, and sea levels up 50cm, the land available in China to grow grain and rice could be reduced by 30 per cent.

"The mass displacement of people, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, could create a great deal of social uncertainty and unrest in the region.

"In their millions, people will look for new land and they'll cross borders to do it."

Prime minister John Howard actually went with 'no comment' when he was asked about Keelty's comments on Tuesday.

Foreign minister, Alexander Downer, tried to claim that Keelty was talking about threats that would take a century to become reality.

The seas won't rise three metres tomorrow, Downer said on Lateline.

But that's not what Keelty was claiming.

Downer, as usual, avoided the substance of the argument and went for the false, but sensational distraction.

Ignoring the looming threats posed by climate change has become a trademark of the Howard government. As with most of the pressing issues of real importance to Australians, Howard and key ministers, like Downer, like to be seen to be doing something, but in reality are leaving it up to someone else, long after their gone, to deal with the challenges they preferred to dismiss as unworthy of their precious time.

Keelty also said that the coming carbon trading market will be rife for corruption, and police will have to become involved in its regulation.

Carbon Cops for real then?

Howard Government Has Left Australian Unprepared For The Global Turmoil From Climate Change

Keelty : Climate Change Will Make Border Security The Most Important Australian Policing Issue Of The Century