Without further comment

[unixronin]

"When a place gets crowded enough to require IDs, social collapse is not far away.  It is time to go elsewhere.  The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere."

— Robert Anson Heinlein  (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988)

Comments

[luke-jaywalker.livejournal.com]

I don't think IDs are a problem - it seems to me that due to that brain-dictated social limit of not being able to know more than about 150 people, even allowing for a certain amount of "I know him, he knows you, he can vouch to me that you're good", a society without some form of ID for loans and so forth is limited to towns of a couple of thousand people.

On the other hand, Manhattan alone had about three million people in the late 19th century, and they did just fine without IDs. Certainly "require" IDs, as opposed to "find IDs to be convenient time-savers for doing stuff that a lot of people don't do anyway", like maybe renting a car.

That said, I agree. In the last couple of days I've had an increasingly hard time avoiding the conclusion that we're screwed.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That said, I agree. In the last couple of days I've had an increasingly hard time avoiding the conclusion that we're screwed.

Unfortunately, that's my conclusion too. It's not a 100% certain thing yet, but the odds point that way.