To prevent another world war : truth detection
The argument is simple: given matched power, at any level from maximal armament to none at all, opposing nations will resort to actual warfare overwhelmingly as a result of mistrust of the other or of misunderstanding resulting from false information-either suspected or actual. My solution is to insure that public or other official statements made by key figures are indeed true. This can be done with available lie detection techniques if national leaders will submit to them. Given an agreement to try, the operational procedures and instrumental techniques could readily be tested and perfected in real life situations of lesser moment than international warfare.
From Detection to Surveillance: U.S. Lie Detection Regimes from the Cold War to the War on Terror
When the polygraph was developed in the early twentieth century, its creators promised a reliable security technology that would furnish mutual trust between individuals, in corporations, and between government and citizens. The history of the use of the lie detector, however, shows that it was not a reliable technology and often exacerbated distrust and conflicts due to the confrontational methodology and the unsubstantiated assumptions governing its use. This history shows that security concerns—namely, the need to uphold a posture of deterrence—and bureaucratic prerogatives of the Central Intelligence Agency made the polygraph nevertheless useful. However, a regime of security did not lead to conditions of trust. This insight is crucial for an understanding of early twenty-first truth technologies based on surveillance that appears less intrusive than lie detection via the polygraph. Security technologies such as brain scanning or biometrics rely on similarly flawed assumptions about human physiology and the possibility of its representation through technology as well as ideological assumptions about the proper social relationships between individuals and between government and citizens, none of which tend to favor mutual trust.
Negotiating the cultural and economic outcomes of sport heritage attractions: the case of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
ABSTRACT Contemporary museums must balance their roles as commercial entities and repositories of various, and often dissonant, heritages and histories. Sports museums in particular often have clear commercial and nostalgic aims, particularly through tourist visitation, though the extent to which they represent more challenging narratives remains unclear. This paper examines how one of the most famous sports museums in the world, the National Baseball Hall of Fame (NBHF) in Cooperstown, New York, balances its dual role as tourist attraction and repository of baseball's sometimes checkered past. It was found that different sections of the museum provide greater or lesser degrees of engagement with more controversial issues, although the commercial outputs and appeal of the museum remains clear throughout. Utlimately, the NBHF demonstrates that balancing veneration and critique in collections can be commercially prosperous, and can provide a template for other sport and popular culture museums who may be wary of incorporating more challenging narratives in their exhibits. Furthermore, the symbiotic relationship between the Hall of Fame and the village of Cooperstown, particularly in creating and maintaining cultural and economic outputs, requires further exploration.