WI: Chronoscope

[Ahriman238]

Recently breezed through Isaac Asimov's "the Dead Past." Which ended on a depressing note, but didn't really further examine the idea and it's consequences. So let's try this: Today, open-source on the web goes detailed plans for a DIY Chronoscope. The Chronoscope, when fed a past date, time and geographical coordinates, will start playing audio and visual of that location, starting from that point. It's range is about 120 years, the last few years get increasingly static-y until nothing can be made out.

Aside from being a priceless tool for historical research, it can be used to monitor any location on Earth with a one second delay. It can also retrieve past conversations and secrets. So privacy, secrecy, security have overnight pretty much gone out the window. What happens next? I assume governments will attempt to control it, but it will have been released in such a manner as to make that virtually impossible, and for damn sure every government is going to get their hands on it. How is that going to play out? Will people eventually just agree it's poor manners to spy on private citizens with this thing?

[Simon_Jester]

Such an agreement will NEVER exist, because too many people love gossip too much. Gossip is one of the fundamental human drives right up there with food, sleep, and sex. You cannot get humans to stop spreading gossip about each other. You can barely even get them to stop actively gossiping at times when something else needs doing. And any tool that allows humans to procure information that can be used for gossip will be used to do so, just as surely as any new communications medium will be adapted as a vehicle for some form of pornography.

[biostem]

I'd imagine that you'd get websites which share the juicy coordinates for celebrity sex. The justice system would become totally revamped, as any crime could be immediately and perfectly able to be investigated. Groups would disseminate negative coordinates on politicians, officials, or anyone else that they didn't like.

It would nearly destroy society in the short run, but would vastly improve accountability in the long term.

[Irbis]

Civilization collapses, either everyone dies or we go back to agrarian society.

Think about it, since there are no living saints every leader possible will have dirt or blood on their hands. Then, as people start learning how the background deals work, and see what banks, governments, corporations do you have revolution ready to go. Every inappropriate joke, not-what-it-looks-like, or misstep you ever did can be used against you. You ever had sex of masturbation? Worse, to inappropriate stuff? You can say goodbye to your past life. Etc, etc.