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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
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| Post-Crime | ||
| Criminal activities after they have actually happened. |
You're probably thinking that this is just some sort of needlessly picky sf word. See below.
| As they walked along the busy, yellow-lit tiers of offices, Anderton said: "You're acquainted with the theory of precrime, of course. I presume we can take that for granted."
"I have the information publicly available," Witwer said. "With the aid of your precog mutants, you've boldly and successfully abolished the post-crime punitive system of punishments and jails. As we all realize, punishment was never much of a deterrent, and could scarcely have afforded comfort to a victim already dead." |
| Technovelgy from The Minority Report,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Fantastic Universe in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Read more about precrime.
"Post-crime" is one of those great sf words that put the ordinary world into a surreal light, like "groundcar" for an ordinary automobile (as opposed to an "aircar"), or a "static home" (as opposed to a "psychotropic house") or inert-wear (as opposed to bio-fabric clothes that moved on their own).
This word may already be needed in the real world. It turns out that criminal profilers working for the London Metropolitan Police's Homicide Prevention Unit are putting together a list of 100 future murderers. See 'Precrime' Database For London Homicide Prevention Unit for details.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Minority Report
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'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
