Facebook bought Oculus. Its goal is to control the world you experience while wearing a pair of modified ski goggles. Mark Zuckerberg is
stoked. Netflix is
stoked. Marketers the
world over are salivating. But how should
youfeel about this?
Personally, I’m scared. I may even be terrified. …
We're also not built for having teeth that work past the age of 25, or allowing those among us with weak eyesight to get enough to eat to live. Ease up on the fear. None of these corporations are smart enough to enslave, and humans adapt like mad.
Actually, I studied the history of evolution at Oxford, and I can tell you that we are built for having our teeth work past the age of 25. And there is plenty of evidence that people with poor eyesight still got enough to eat to live. The issue with our teeth has to do with complex carbohydrates; that's what causes tooth decay. If you had a diet high in protein and unprocessed carbs, they don't decay nearly so quickly. And the eyesight thing, well, that's where communities come in, something humans seem to have been living in for a very, very long time. Before they were homo, and still Australopithecus. But I digress.
The point I think Hotchkiss is making, while perhaps a bit too breathlessly, is that companies DO addict us through media. The evidence is plentiful on that front, particularly as it relates to digital. That light in our faces? It's like taking a shot of espresso. The blinking and the beeping and the notifying? Little hits of cocaine. He's right to question impact of the medium and the motivation behind serving it to us.
I for one don't think people actually like it all that much, beyond the neato factor, and some evidence that it is very useful for helping vicitims of physical trauma deal with pain (e.g. watching snow while having a sever burn abraded). I'm sure this will change the better it gets, but if it really does get us the way that Mr. Hotchkiss suggests it will, there are possible future scenarios where people never leave the house, living in a visually virtual world, starving to death while in the throes of an endless orgasm. And those that don't? Will be Darwin's successful adaptations.
That's me - breathless!
Yes, David, humans do adapt, but there are societal ripple effects (unintended consequences) that can take a generation or two to emerge - as in Putnam's Bowling Alone. As Jim points out, there is substantial evidence that electronic media has had an significant impact on us. We should be going forward fully aware of the trade-offs and not be blindly trustful in technological bells and whistles.
I bow to Jim's expertise, and should start a business with him that caters to the needs of starving orgasm addicts. Bring gloves and hazmat suits.
But the greater point remains: fear is tremendously limiting, and future dystopias glorify a status quo that doesn't deserve glory.
We will tell our kids about how everyone used to know about all sorts of things they would never, ever want to buy, that entertainment and leisure used to be incredibly time-inefficient and cumbersome, and how an unconscionable number of us would die horribly in antiquated transportation. Among other mundane atrocities that will not endure.
Being as we will be their parents telling them stuff, they won't care very much. Same as it ever was.
I don't think it's slavery we need to fear -- it's mere acquiescence.
Gord, you are so on target. It is something I have been trying to say but you wrap it better. The "We are begging to be controlled." saying is winking at you. Mr. Mountain, the human animal has been enslaving other humans for millenia and there is still tons of human enslavement all over the globe without more coorporate control. We are all pawns in a game of the few top power moguls who are above financial games. Being in boxes, so to speak, believing what you are told and not true transfers to believing in things that are not true out of the box. There will be consequences. Think child soldiers of Boko Haram. ANd that is just for starters. Gord has all the reason in the universe and beyond to be terrified. If you are not, you are already manipulated.