Ok, it's time to sort through random story notes that I left for myself. I never have the time or discipline to write science fiction, but I come up with concepts and ideas all the time. Many suck. But here are some:

Surveillance search patterns should be based on something that works. Copy nature. If you have an aerial drone, model the search algorithm on the hunting patterns of predators. Model the behavior on sharks, or maybe hawks. Little brains driven by the urge to "GET IT" ... and many millions of years of successful hunting shaping the wiring.

The problem with raising children in a technological society is that they miss out on the very characteristics of experience which made it possible- tenacity, agrarian work ethics, social interdependancy made explicit from an early age. As technology increases, people come of age from an easier childhood into a greater position of sheer material power than ever before. At what point is the amount of constructive and destructive power available to a citizen so great that citizenship is not guaranteed? How do you raise a new citizen? An option for a good story, assuming the technology is advanced enough, you raise them in parallel virtual environments, or successive ones, which present issues of survival and ethical development in earlier technological eras. Adversity, difficulty, moral challenges. It's like a schooling system, but much harsher. The crops fail. Those who revert to cannibalism don't graduate. Bronze era stuff. Early technological development, the moral decisions of the British empire, commerce. Early ecological questions. When a person has lived through these eras and developed into one who is capable of responsible use of technology, then they may study Modern Engineering.

Aristoi, come to think of it. (An excellent book by Walter Jon Williams)