That’s why I’d suggest that there be a rule that the images in the holodeck can NOT resemble reality too closely. They should look like obvious CG constructs.
Boils down to a discussion of what the role of government should be. I strongly oppose most forms of nanny-state protectionism. If somebody breaks the law by harming another, then punish them. Otherwise, the government needs to stay out of people’s lives.
You’ve misread my position, or I’ve stated it badly. I did not say that holosuite activities should be videotaped. I said that in the event they are videotaped, they are watermarked or otherwise encoded such that they can be distinguished from a recording of a real-world event. This is to prevent anyone from creating a holographic simulation, containing a fake version of an actual person, and then videotaping it and releasing it to embarrass said actual person.
Then how am I supposed to fulfill my fantasy of a harem of beautiful men?
I think I’m not communicating clearly, though I doubt we’ll agree on this issue. I don’t think that anyone ought to have a record of or access to the content of any users program. Only that the system tag out excessive time spent in such environments and a simple “hey how are you?” visit with the holo-doc be logged before the next use (free of charge and time) to ensure that those users have an opportunity to remember that the deck is fantasy. Those records could be useful in the event of the rare, real psychotic break. Not as a preemptive strike, but rather as a back up to help after a crime has been committed or attempted.
For example, say I’m playing at a "conan the barbarian’ type of world I’ve made. While I’ve every right to spend all my game gold in the whore-houses and inns, if that’s all I’m doing, to exclusion of everything else for a lot of logged hours, the holo-doc would pop up before the next visit for a quick check in to make sure there isn’t something too serious going on. No thought police, just an automated check in every other month if that’s all I’m ever doing in suite. The deck just knows that i’m running the same protocols over and over again.
Easy enough to fix: Nobody goes into a suite any way but naked. A quick scan to check for “inserted” electronics, and we’re covered. If you don’t let recording devices inside to begin with, it solves that problem completely.
Yllaria, I have to disagree with your suggestion. The entire point of a holosuite is to replicate reality. If the creation have to be markedly fake, then what’s the point? My fantasy is about Michelle Trachtenberg, not a close approximation thereof.
No “mental-health” monitoring of any kind! My sicko perversions are mine to cherish, and aren’t for others to criticise or “monitor.”
eta: **Acid Lamp’s **proposal is acceptable.
You’re right, we are not going to agree. As I see it, what you suggest amount to applying the Bush Premption Doctrine to the holosuite. As long as I have broken no laws, it is my business what I do in the holosuite, for how long, and how often. It is also my right to chose when, how, and even if to seek medical treatment.
If you own a holosuite, sure; but if it’s AcidLamp’s Holo-Emporium, I have to look out for my business. I don’t even want to imagine the liability lawsuits involved in holodeck interactions. Likewise if the government is providing subsidies or funding for holodecks, they have the right to ensure that they are not contributing to an unbalanced state of mind without at least a user cleared advisory.
For example: Say I’m a kid who is getting bullied at school. I make up a program to help me get over my fear, using the bully’s image from the yearbook. net benefit: Good. I take out my aggression in a safe manner, and eventually I lose my fear of the bully. Now say instead I just indulge in a violent murder fantasy, over and over and over again. I’m still bullied and won’t do anything about it. Eventually, I act out on my fantasy in meat-space. Net benefit BAD, and if I had logged a couple of visits with the holo-doc, that might be a flag to mom and dad. (In my world children under 16 do not have privacy rights in suite)
Why would the government have any such right? They subsidize the interstate highway system, and I fantasize about kicking the ass of that jerk that cut me off in traffic. As long as I don’t proceed to actually kicking his ass, I’ve committed no crime.
Same applies to your bully scenario. As long as the customer does not actually harm another person, he has committed no crime. Thus, there is no probable cause to support invading his privacy, “searching” his mental state, or otherwise hassling the citizen in any way.
Lets say you don’t run a holo-suite. You run a bookstore that sells tentacle porn. You know that your customers are buying the porn and masturbating to tentacle-rich fantasies that would disgust 99.99999999 percent of the free world. As long as they don’t grow tentacles and sexually assault others, they are committing no crime.
I’m really not getting how what you propose is not an attempt at pre-emptive law enforcement.
Also not getting why you’d fear any legal liability for what a customer does outside of your holo-emporium. A movie theatre owner that shows The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not liable if some nutcase decides to go all leatherface on somebody. The nutcase is liable, criminally and civilly, for his own actions.
Someone already suggested the possibility of staging actions to film for character assassination so I’ll skip to my next thought.
What about me using it to stage simulations of a crime I’m planning to carry out in meatspace? Robbing a Brinks armored car or assassinating someone?
How is that any different from playing Grand Theft Auto or any other video game with violent content?
A holodeck is nothing more than a really super-duper video game.
I figure until you do it, it’s fine. It’s perfectly possible for people to make plans like that now.
I agree with Acid Lamp. Holodecks aren’t really just better video games. What video game do you know of where you, yourself, can physically walk around, handle things, and program it to do anything you want? A holodeck fantasy would be a lot easier to confuse with reality than anything we have now.
You don’t get to walk around and interact with the virtual environment unless you go to wherever the holosuite emporium is located, pay the fee, suit up in whatever costume/equipment is needed, etc. That ought to be enough to distinguish it from reality.
I have it on good authority that the person who, ah, liberated this technology by means of his Burroughs-Libby continua device (itself [del]stolen[/del] acquired in an entirely different adventure) will be happy to make sure you have all the 'suite time you want as long as you keep him supplied with Cheetara/Pumira porn.
Then I’m SOL then, aren’t I? I only write stuff I’m interested in.
Simple solution–all Holosuite ownership is confined to Las Vegas.
And what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
Eh, maybe on DS9, but not on TNG. Seems like people could just walk into anyone’s program or look up another person’s program whenever they wanted to. And while it was frowned upon by the person whose image was used there was no regulation against using someone’s image (Geordi and the engineer woman, Barclay and senior staff, the Doctor and Voyager crew).
Definitely there needs to be a safe word.
In general yes. Maybe there should be a policy against ‘mindfuck’ programs that let you think you’ve left the holodeck when you actually haven’t, or otherwise mess with your mental stability. So yeah, no Jacob’s Ladder or Vanilla Sky holosuite programs.
The various Star Trek series featuring the holodeck established that holodeck programs can’t be run indefinitely because of limitations (rounding errors?) that eventually crash the program. Is that the case here?
You know something? We’re not running things the Starfleet way. Starfleet promoted Kathryn Janeway to admiral. She’s not well, and neither are the rets of them. 
What I was going for was around Shrek level reality. IIRC, they could have gotten closer to human for their human characters, but that started to loose the cartoon vibe and to clash with the more cartoon-type characters. You can still get beautiful, you just can’t get beautiful and real.
I still think that going into full-on immersible reality would be tickling the dragon’s tail. I understand that people don’t want to be constrained, but I’d be very nervous about unexpected ramifications.