The Measure of Man

Once it seemed as though one day we could live in a land made free of the tiny-minded bureaucrat. Scientists had developed many ways of riding us of these pests and vermin through the growth of technology and other wonders, which made the pettifogging, rule-bound busybodies less and less necessary for the functioning of society.

Unfortunately, though, such is this universe of unintended consequences, the very things we made to rid us of the evil of the jobsworth also gave those very jobsworths the tools to pry and to poke and to interfere even more into our already overburdened and overregulated lives.

Soon we could not even walk down the street without having our movements, our whereabouts and even our dress-sense recorded for all posterity on CCTV cameras and other tracking systems.

However, what was strange about this was that many people did not mind, they assumed that somehow it was all for their own good, that their lives were made safer, easier, better by being tracked everywhere, by having all their purchases analysed and their very thoughts measured, recorded and tabulated against what was deemed acceptable to think and say. What was worse was that when their error about this all was pointed out to them, not one of them cared.

Not until it was too late, anyway.