Minority Report

That's So Raven!!

Obviously Raven sees the future, but this particular gif makes me think of Precrime's attitude toward the criminals because of the visions of the precogs. It doesn't matter if they did what they might have been about to do - they just have to deal with it.

My Minority Report Report

While watching this movie, I found the individual versus community question to be in my head a lot. What's interesting is that the Precrime justice system is being advertised as a protective tool for both the community as a whole (the kids at the ending of the advertisement), as well as for the individual (all of the people saying where they would have been stabbed or whatever). However, the consequences of Precrime directly affect the individual; when a pre-criminal is caught and haloed, they are put into an eternal sleep-like state that seems far from what would be in a utopic setting. This punishment also calls into question the morality of this system and where it falls on the spectrum of being autonomous versus having more laws and governance. Of course, both of these versus are from the “Plotting Utopia” chart—I find myself going back to this with Minority Report as I find it hard to place in the quadrants. While the government is very adamant about preventing/catching murder, they don’t seem to care much about other crimes being committed. So, there could be a fair amount of autonomy in the society, considering other laws aren’t focused on in the movie, but it could just be that the government is just overlooking crimes that don’t involve homicide… And then, again, with the happiness of the individual versus of the community—where does Minority Report’s D.C. society fall of this scale? I want to say somewhere in the middle since the community is being protected at the cost of some individuals (but there’s still debate in my head over that as well). Basically, this movie poses some strong moral questions and has some serious punishment laws... Where would you place it in the plot?

Ethically Right???

I didn’t finish the movie, but I got pretty far into it. I guess my question is just about ethics. I really have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of arresting people and basically trapping them forever before they’ve ever done anything wrong. I feel like there should be some type of remediation or like help given to them. I can understand and agree with stopping the crimes before they happen, but how the person is treated and dealt with afterwards seems a bit extreme. 

Criminal Justice

With the "evidence" used to make precrime arrests, it can be assumed that the need for a trial is removed because there doesn't seem to be a question of innocence or any known reasonable doubt. However, the criminal justice system in this movie seems to leave out key concepts from our current systems such as sentencing or rehabilitation. Not only were people arrested for crimes they could/would have committed but it seemed as though they were declared guilty for the rest of their lives. This is a factor of injustice that I overlooked during my first viewing of the film but I believe this is an additional problematic trait of the precrime system amongst the obvious others.

Punishment in Utopia

With the use of “halos” as the ultimate ‘demise’ for a citizen in Minority Report, I was wondering what parallel ways we can think of how a citizen of a utopia is ‘taken care of’ in our other readings. In Herlandthe citizens are not given the right to have children, and the men are educated and held captive. In Caves of Steelthere is the threat of declassification. In Unwindthere is a chance that our characters will be ‘unwound’ (more on that next class). Is ‘haloing’ a depraved form of punishment or a light one? Do the forms of punishment in a utopia show that it is truly enlightened?

Technology as a vehicle

Minority Report is science fiction in the truest sense, using advanced or impossible technology to explore a question; the difference between intent and action. It also shows the problems inherent to absolute belief in a supposedly infallible system. Are there any other examples, from our readings or the real world, which support the argument made by the movie/ short story?

The Future and Absolutes

Okay, my brain isn't sciency all too often or all too well. And the future is like, impossible to think about once I scale it to a certain point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

The likely extinction date for humankind? How about the heat death of all stars? This is one of my favorite articles on Wikipedia. One of the reasons for that is that it could all be completely wrong (probably not, but possible). Not because it's Wikipedia, but because it's impossible to predict the future "with absolute certainty." So, I don't trust anything on this article "with absolutely certainty."

Back to The Minority Report. If it's impossible to think of the universe with any kind of certainty, how could we ever predict our own humanity with absolute certainty? Precogs are admittedly flawed!
Is it worth it to be wrong some of the time to take precautions all of the time? People are wrongfully sentenced today, even without a Precog system, and it's horrific.

What are the consequences of human error in prediction? Even if the state possesses the ability to predict crimes better than the layperson (which in itself is arguable), is it a valid system of prosecution if they can never predict anything with certainty?

Minority Report

I think that what made this movie interesting was the concept of a minority report which is a vision that shows an alternative fate. I think that what made this movie so bad was the lack of focus on this concept. The minority report was used as a convenient way for the not-so-bad-guy to get killed and for Tom Cruise's character to solve a murder that he didn't know he was solving. Having the director take advantage of the minority report being redacted to get away with murder is a very genius and convoluted idea. I think that discovering that there are alternative fates in Minority Report's utopia setting would be extremely disastrous to society and their beliefs. But is that explored, kind of but not really.

Identity

We’ve looked at a couple characters in utopian societies who take on a new identity. Anderton takes on the identity of Ernest Temple. Vincent becomes Jerome. Lauren disguises herself as a man. Each character does this to conceal something about him or herself and/or conform to societal expectations. Gattaca and Brave New World also look at DNA as a means of classification. Perhaps, then, there is an element of utopia within our identities. Despite the surrounding society, there are characters who go with the majority and those who stand out as unfitting in some manner. Maybe utopia could be unique to each individual, that everyone has to find an idea of utopia within themselves no matter what is going on in the outside world. That utopia could be conforming with a rigid government, branching out to start a new society, or something in between. Whatever satisfies the individual is his or her unique utopia rather than the outside forces attempting to create it and fit everyone into the same mold.