Humanist Policing in the 21Century

Thursday the 8^th Feb 2018 from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at the White Rock Hotel

Is good policing a basic necessity for civil society?  The society’s greater good is secured by all members following the rules, but sometimes our individual interest can best be served by breaking those rules and sometimes the rules need to change to enable society to evolve.  This is not really question of good and bad in the Biblical sense, it is about maintaining a balance between individual freedom and the requirements of the group.

Firstly let’s review the challenges faced by policing today and then see how we need it to evolve over the next 30 years.

There are special challenges in the immediate future with regard to the ‘surveillance society’. How does the public maintain control over invisible policing algorithms that might find you guilty of intent and impose penalties, because it thinks you might do something! We are continuously tracked, not just when you are in your car (number plate recognition is common place) but now face recognition that means ‘society’ can track your every move – even if you choose not to be followed by your mobile phone.

As our identity becomes public property, how can we protect ourselves from an overbearing state and balance personal freedoms to disagree, with societal needs for conformity? And further developments in Block Chain technologies have the potential to change the nature of ‘Trust’ between strangers and that may have a bigger impact than anything!

Note: we may be in a different room at the White Rock Hotel…

Future subjects

·         March – The hidden life of Trees (Nick and Liz)

·         April – Global Population issues (Alastair)

Our future with artificial Intelligence and robotics

Our future with artificial Intelligence and robotics

Next Thursday the 11^th Jan 2018 from 7.30pm to 9.30pm at the White Rock Hotel

It seems appropriate that as we enter a new year, that we think about some of the great challenges to the way we will organise society in the future.
Our accelerating ability to offload the routine and humdrum (and the vitally important) onto machines that will do it better and cheaper than humans can, will have an impact on everybody. It is the classic middle class jobs that seem most at risk from the industrial revolution 2.0 and it is hard to know what to advise young people to specialise in, as they contemplate the next 50 years of their lives.

The impact of developments in AI and robotics will change the world of work at an exponential rate. But whether this is a boon that improves the lives of everyone, or a disaster that creates an even more unequal society of ‘haves’ and ‘have nothings’, is a matter of political choice. It will pit our great human capacity for collaboration and co-operation, against the equally powerful tendency for group think and competition.

We are approaching a tipping point in which individuals can make a difference, but nobody has a clear view of the questions, never mind being able to construct answers….plenty of room for debate on all the vital issues.

Happy 2018

Future subjects

·         February – Do Humanists need Police? (Mick and Mike)

·         March – The hidden life of Trees (Nick and Liz)

·         April – Global Population issues (Alistair)