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I was on another forum, the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forum of all places, where someone made a thread make a ridiculous claim that at birth all people should be forced to have a GPS tracking chip inserted into their brain. His argument was that it would help stop abductions and kidnappings. He also said it would help stop teen sex, drug & alcohol abuse, breaking curfew, and other acts of civil disobedience. The entire community, save for Geshalt (another user) and the OP, then told him how horrible of an idea it was. People cited references to totalitarian government, human rights violations, how such a thing could be abused by the government/abusive parents/pedophiles who figure out how to track kids and teenagers.

People also said how it's like treating human beings like cattle. Some users said that it should be allowed up until they turn 13 and then it should be removed, and other users said that if you need a GPS locator to keep your children safe, then you shouldn't have kids. Personally I'm against such a thing, it's a very slippery slope after all, and I while I'm not a minor, I probably would have killed myself as a teenager if my parents and/or the government could figure out my exact location at any given time. I sarcastically told the OP that he might as well have thought police while he was at it. So, what do you think of this?

Most teenagers carry mobile phones these days which is not so dissimilar.

Sounds a bit draconian and dystopian to be honest. Smacks of the sort of scare-mongering that the Daily Mail specialises in. That being said, you are under more surveillance than you realise. The average Briton is spotted on CCTV 70 times a day according to the Telegraph and that's just the bog-standard town centre surveillance stuff.

I'm spotted on CCTV about six times a day going to the lavatory.

You can't get mobile reception in there though.

As with all things, this is mostly a question of how the technology will be used. If it is just for kidnapping cases and similar things, then it isn't problematic; though such limitations are unlikely.

That said, there is safety in numbers, and if everyone is "chipped" it is unlikely that you, individually, will suffer any consequences.

I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

Monster Rain wrote:I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

How is that by any means okay?

...really? this is even an idea worth considering?

c'mon! when i was a kid if i was inclined to make trouble or get into trouble, chip or no chip it was happening.

do you really want your child to have this line of thinking?:

"okay so im grounded and my mom wont let me go to that concert/party/gangbang and ive got a chip in me. Where the hell is that powerdrill?"

but seriously folks you can only prevent so much. If you try to prevent anything from happening to your kids then nothing will happen to your kids. think about it.

Though it may not have come across very strongly here, much of my political and philosophical thought is based on the idea that we should have ultimate authority over our own body, even if we have it over nothing else. Suffice it to say that this is, at the very least, an astoundingly horrendous idea from my perspective.

Something straight off the top of my head: Let's say that the use of such a thing becomes widespread. There will be standardisation. There'll have to be, for there to be any use out of the thing. Given this, technological countermeasures will be viable, if only in locating the chip. And once you've done that, it's a simple thing to cut it out of any nubile young body that you've abducted. This would only be useful where it was unexpected, which means if we start implanting everyone, it's only good for spying on people when they haven't been abducted, which means police state, which means...

You get the picture, I hope?

samusaran253 wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

How is that by any means okay?

If/when you have kids, you will understand....

filbert wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

How is that by any means okay?

If/when you have kids, you will understand....

If I want my kids to live in fear, never know what the real world is like, and commit suicide, then I might agree with you. But otherwise no.

samusaran253 wrote:

filbert wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

How is that by any means okay?

If/when you have kids, you will understand....

If I want my kids to live in fear, never know what the real world is like, and commit suicide, then I might agree with you. But otherwise no.

I take it from that response that you have kids then? No? Didn't think so. Again, when/if you do, then you will understand that it provokes a reaction to want to protect and nuture, sometimes to the point of irrationality.

samusaran253 wrote:

filbert wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

How is that by any means okay?

If/when you have kids, you will understand....

If I want my kids to live in fear, never know what the real world is like, and commit suicide, then I might agree with you. But otherwise no.

If your kids live in fear of you then there are bigger issues here than the chipping.

filbert wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

filbert wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

How is that by any means okay?

If/when you have kids, you will understand....

If I want my kids to live in fear, never know what the real world is like, and commit suicide, then I might agree with you. But otherwise no.

I take it from that response that you have kids then? No? Didn't think so. Again, when/if you do, then you will understand that it provokes a reaction to want to protect and nuture, sometimes to the point of irrationality.

Why not have 24/7 surveillance in every human beings home and in all outdoors areas? Why not have thought police to prevent "crime" or why not ban guns while you're at it? Let's implement school uniforms and a curfew for all adults, teenagers, and children (excluding government officials and thought police of course)? It's a slippery slope. Plus it's morally (and legally) wrong in every way.

samusaran253 wrote: It's a slippery slope.

No it isn't. Slippery slopes aren't real things.

samusaran253 wrote:

filbert wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

filbert wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

How is that by any means okay?

If/when you have kids, you will understand....

If I want my kids to live in fear, never know what the real world is like, and commit suicide, then I might agree with you. But otherwise no.

I take it from that response that you have kids then? No? Didn't think so. Again, when/if you do, then you will understand that it provokes a reaction to want to protect and nuture, sometimes to the point of irrationality.

Why not have 24/7 surveillance in every human beings home and in all outdoors areas? Why not have thought police to prevent "crime" or why not ban guns while you're at it? Let's implement school uniforms and a curfew for all adults, teenagers, and children (excluding government officials and thought police of course)? It's a slippery slope. Plus it's morally (and legally) wrong in every way.

This is exactly the reaction that the thread OP you refer to was seeking to provoke. I hesitate to say it but I think you fell for the troll.

Just because you want to overprotect your kids doesn't mean it's intelligent. For the sake of argument, a meteor is going to hit your kid who is standing in the middle of a park. You are far enough away that it might not kill you, especially if you started running away. You can rush towards your kid even though you know you won't be able to push them out of the way in time and you'll only kill yourself in the process. If any portion of you thinks this is the best idea, you objectively either aren't being rational or are self-destructive.

samusaran253 wrote:

filbert wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:I know that if one of my kids went missing I'd rather have a
GPS chip in them than not.

I think the same thing every time there's an Amber Alert or something like that. I say go for it. If you want it removed when you're 18 knock yourself out.

How is that by any means okay?

If/when you have kids, you will understand....

If I want my kids to live in fear, never know what the real world is like, and commit suicide, then I might agree with you. But otherwise no.

Bit of a leap to go from not wanting one's children to be irretrievably lost for whatever reason to living in fear, sheltering and suicide, don't you think?

samusaran253 wrote:

Why not have 24/7 surveillance in every human beings home and in all outdoors areas? Why not have thought police to prevent "crime" or why not ban guns while you're at it? Let's implement school uniforms and a curfew for all adults, teenagers, and children (excluding government officials and thought police of course)? It's a slippery slope.

Why not have a reductio ad absurdum fallacy?

samusaran253 wrote:Plus it's morally (and legally) wrong in every way.

I think an argument could be reasonably made that it's not morally wrong, and it certainly isn't legally wrong in "every way."



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Just because you want to overprotect your kids doesn't mean it's intelligent.

Yeah, that makes sense to some random dude on the internet.

Ask someone like John Walsh if he wishes he'd had one of these in his kid.

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Though it may not have come across very strongly here, much of my political and philosophical thought is based on the idea that we should have ultimate authority over our own body, even if we have it over nothing else. Suffice it to say that this is, at the very least, an astoundingly horrendous idea from my perspective.

Who has ultimate authority over a child's body?

As much as my daughter wants to eat candy and drink pop for 3 meals a day, it's my responsibility to tell her "no" and make her eat her vegetables. While there may be some question about line drawing, I think it's unquestionable that parents have the authority to do whatever they want to their kids, so long as it doesn't rise to the level of child abuse. And I don't think that this child abuse by any stretch of the imagination. The risk of permenant injury or death would be very small, I'd wager as low or lower than the risk of acquiring a disease from a vaccine, or hepatitis from a blood transfusion (basically the range of human-caused cross-contamination).

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Just because you want to overprotect your kids doesn't mean it's intelligent. For the sake of argument, a meteor is going to hit your kid who is standing in the middle of a park. You are far enough away that it might not kill you, especially if you started running away. You can rush towards your kid even though you know you won't be able to push them out of the way in time and you'll only kill yourself in the process. If any portion of you thinks this is the best idea, you objectively either aren't being rational or are self-destructive.

umm Cannerus when youre a parent theres this HUGE instinct to throw logic away from the equation. so yes, if im a parent id fully expect myself to TRY to get my kid away from that firey ball of death.

this is not a life or death situation we're talking about here though. its about taking away someons right to privacy to "protect" them

The only difficulty from a chip is that its easily removed. Grant you most bad guys are dumber than a box of rocks, but many aren't and cwould remove it from a kidnapped child.

The teenagers on the thread get antsy about being tracked are misperceiving though. Its an interesting concept for the purposes of rescuing kidnapped children.

biccat wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Though it may not have come across very strongly here, much of my political and philosophical thought is based on the idea that we should have ultimate authority over our own body, even if we have it over nothing else. Suffice it to say that this is, at the very least, an astoundingly horrendous idea from my perspective.

Who has ultimate authority over a child's body?

As much as my daughter wants to eat candy and drink pop for 3 meals a day, it's my responsibility to tell her "no" and make her eat her vegetables. While there may be some question about line drawing, I think it's unquestionable that parents have the authority to do whatever they want to their kids, so long as it doesn't rise to the level of child abuse. And I don't think that this child abuse by any stretch of the imagination. The risk of permenant injury or death would be very small, I'd wager as low or lower than the risk of acquiring a disease from a vaccine, or hepatitis from a blood transfusion (basically the range of human-caused cross-contamination).

Imagine all of the teenagers who would commit suicide if they're mom walked in on them having sex with their girlfriend. Or if my parents saw all of the hardcore sexual stuff I'm into, I'd probably an hero. Of course they would probably disown me completely if they knew what I was into.

Like I said, you would be hard pressed to find a teenager these days who doesn't carry a phone. It's not much of a leap from a mobile phone to a chip implant.

samusaran253 wrote:

biccat wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Though it may not have come across very strongly here, much of my political and philosophical thought is based on the idea that we should have ultimate authority over our own body, even if we have it over nothing else. Suffice it to say that this is, at the very least, an astoundingly horrendous idea from my perspective.

Who has ultimate authority over a child's body?

As much as my daughter wants to eat candy and drink pop for 3 meals a day, it's my responsibility to tell her "no" and make her eat her vegetables. While there may be some question about line drawing, I think it's unquestionable that parents have the authority to do whatever they want to their kids, so long as it doesn't rise to the level of child abuse. And I don't think that this child abuse by any stretch of the imagination. The risk of permenant injury or death would be very small, I'd wager as low or lower than the risk of acquiring a disease from a vaccine, or hepatitis from a blood transfusion (basically the range of human-caused cross-contamination).

Imagine all of the teenagers who would commit suicide if they're mom walked in on them having sex with their girlfriend. Or if my parents saw all of the hardcore sexual stuff I'm into, I'd probably an hero. Of course they would probably disown me completely if they knew what I was into.

They know more than you think, after all this aint their first rodeo. It is, however, yours.

samusaran253 wrote:

biccat wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Though it may not have come across very strongly here, much of my political and philosophical thought is based on the idea that we should have ultimate authority over our own body, even if we have it over nothing else. Suffice it to say that this is, at the very least, an astoundingly horrendous idea from my perspective.

Who has ultimate authority over a child's body?

As much as my daughter wants to eat candy and drink pop for 3 meals a day, it's my responsibility to tell her "no" and make her eat her vegetables. While there may be some question about line drawing, I think it's unquestionable that parents have the authority to do whatever they want to their kids, so long as it doesn't rise to the level of child abuse. And I don't think that this child abuse by any stretch of the imagination. The risk of permenant injury or death would be very small, I'd wager as low or lower than the risk of acquiring a disease from a vaccine, or hepatitis from a blood transfusion (basically the range of human-caused cross-contamination).

Imagine all of the teenagers who would commit suicide if they're mom walked in on them having sex with their girlfriend. Or if my parents saw all of the hardcore sexual stuff I'm into, I'd probably an hero. Of course they would probably disown me completely if they knew what I was into.

Actually studies show that most people with sexual fetishes that involve harming other people are actually of an above average intelligence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

samusaran253 wrote:

samusaran253 wrote:

biccat wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Though it may not have come across very strongly here, much of my political and philosophical thought is based on the idea that we should have ultimate authority over our own body, even if we have it over nothing else. Suffice it to say that this is, at the very least, an astoundingly horrendous idea from my perspective.

Who has ultimate authority over a child's body?

As much as my daughter wants to eat candy and drink pop for 3 meals a day, it's my responsibility to tell her "no" and make her eat her vegetables. While there may be some question about line drawing, I think it's unquestionable that parents have the authority to do whatever they want to their kids, so long as it doesn't rise to the level of child abuse. And I don't think that this child abuse by any stretch of the imagination. The risk of permenant injury or death would be very small, I'd wager as low or lower than the risk of acquiring a disease from a vaccine, or hepatitis from a blood transfusion (basically the range of human-caused cross-contamination).

Imagine all of the teenagers who would commit suicide if they're mom walked in on them having sex with their girlfriend. Or if my parents saw all of the hardcore sexual stuff I'm into, I'd probably an hero. Of course they would probably disown me completely if they knew what I was into.

Actually studies show that most people with sexual fetishes that involve harming other people are actually of an above average intelligence.

My sexuality isn't any of my parents business. Same goes for everyone else.

biccat wrote:

WARBOSS TZOO wrote:Though it may not have come across very strongly here, much of my political and philosophical thought is based on the idea that we should have ultimate authority over our own body, even if we have it over nothing else. Suffice it to say that this is, at the very least, an astoundingly horrendous idea from my perspective.

Who has ultimate authority over a child's body?

As much as my daughter wants to eat candy and drink pop for 3 meals a day, it's my responsibility to tell her "no" and make her eat her vegetables.

Okay, let's stop right there. There's a difference between being able to control what doesn't happen to your body and controlling what does. Do you have the right to force her to get an abortion? Do you have the right to forbid it?

biccat wrote:While there may be some question about line drawing, I think it's unquestionable that parents have the authority to do whatever they want to their kids, so long as it doesn't rise to the level of child abuse.

...Sure, because there aren't any questions about what constitutes child abuse. For example, is male genital mutilation, or as it's better known, circumscision, child abuse?

But leaving that aside, children aren't property. You're a caretaker, not a slaveowner. Why should you have the authority to do "whatever you want" to your kids?

biccat wrote:And I don't think that this child abuse by any stretch of the imagination. The risk of permenant injury or death would be very small, I'd wager as low or lower than the risk of acquiring a disease from a vaccine, or hepatitis from a blood transfusion (basically the range of human-caused cross-contamination).

Is the only measure by which we determine what is and what isn't child abuse a high risk of permanent injury or death?

How did we get from trying to prevent kids being kidnapped to parents walking in on kids having sex?

Frazzled wrote: Its an interesting concept for the purposes of rescuing kidnapped children.

this is the only good i see out of it. but when do you remove it? 18? thats where it becomes tricky.

the scary part about the tracking is that it might force any kidnappers to act "quicker"...

GPS chips would not prevent anything.

a GPS chip would not stop a kid missing the bus or even rocking up to P. A. Dophile and getting in his car to see mummy in hospital.

No, I would not want my tax money spent on something so useless for my bairns.

filbert wrote:How did we get from trying to prevent kids being kidnapped to parents walking in on kids having sex?

Prevent? GPS chips are an inherently reactive measure, unless we're talking about the psychological effect of knowing the kid can be tracked.

samusaran253 wrote:Imagine all of the teenagers who would commit suicide if they're mom walked in on them having sex with their girlfriend. Or if my parents saw all of the hardcore sexual stuff I'm into, I'd probably an hero. Of course they would probably disown me completely if they knew what I was into.

Um, probably very few. I'm sure you could make a statistical correlation, but would it be much different from the statistical year-to-year noise of teen suicides? I doubt it. Besides, I wouldn't grant you, my kids, or kids at large carte blanche to do whatever you want on the "I'll hold my breath until I die" argument.

First, if kids grow up knowing that they are trackable and can be found at any time, then they probably wouldn't engage in acts that are likely to get them in such trouble. Believe it or not, I (and probably your parents generation) grew up without hardcore porn, having tons of premarital sex, 24/7 internet access, and all other kinds of crap that kids today have. You'd be fine, seriously.

Second, do you have a router? Because I'll guarantee your parents could find out what you're looking at on the internet. I do it at my house, and I don't think it's an invasion of privacy at all.