You have already been assimilated

[blazer1000]

As mentioned yesterday 1, I designed a new folder schema 2 in the hopes that a simple, logical, planned hierarchy would make organization and maintenance easier. I started moving files this evening. This is no small feat when it involves around half a terabyte of data 3. Fortunately, all of the path-critical stuff 4 moved without any complaints.

My parents came to visit this past weekend. With them, my mother brought me a bluetooth headset that she originally purchased for herself, but never used. Having used it today to chat with her and my dad on my drive home from work, I have to say that I’m impressed. It’s a pretty awesome device for something so small. And I admit: tapping my ear and saying “Call ” to make a call makes me feel pretty futuristic. There are still some problems in the whole voice recognition department 5, but that’s par for the course.

Speaking of technology, and coming to the actual observation that prompted this post, I walked by the living room just now where Cody was watching Glee. She had her laptop set out in front of her as she watched. After a few incidental thoughts about how curious it is that we, as a society, are no longer content consuming media in one form at a time, I thought back to an article I read many years ago regarding the integration of humans with their electronics (i.e. cyborgs). The author of this article proposed that we were already cyborgs; it was just a matter of degree.

We are often tied to our computers. The Internet is the conduit through which many of us communicate, inform ourselves about current events, and educate ourselves about the world 6. Many of us now depend on computers as part of our ability to execute our profession successfully. Many of us depend on computers for the existence of our professions 7.

None of this is to say we would be non-functional without them 8, but rather that they are thoroughly entwined with our day-to-day existence. With that in mind, will actual electronic-body integration be all that remarkable a thing? A technical achievement, absolutely. But will it truly revolutionize anything? Or will it be just another progression from room-sized computers to tower PCs to laptops to netbooks to smartphones? It’ll be hard to get smaller than the current smartphones 9 without impairing their usability. The only place left to go is in - inside your head, integrated with your eyes and ears, etc.

But is that really all that different?

I am, as it may be obvious, not someone who is particularly intimidated by technology’s progression. I think it does far more good than harm 10 and it’ll only get better. Sure, there’s always risk, and as the technology advances, so too does the risk. Risk doesn’t mean danger, though. It just means that you stand to lose or gain in varied measure.

The other day, I had a narrative scene pop into my head 11 wherein a group genetically/biologically “perfect” humans squared off against cybernetically-augmented humans. The face off was more or less a pissing contest, and went something like this:

“We are pure and perfect. Your capabilities may infrequently exceed ours, but at least we don’t have machines defiling our bodies.”
“Yeah. Too bad for you on that one.”

I think that sums up my feelings.

1. Okay, technically this morning. [ ↩]
2. The plural for schema is schemata, not schemas, by the way. [ ↩]
3. Admittedly, I probably don’t need to have half a terabyte of data just sitting around on my disk drives, hence the effort to organize. [ ↩]
4. Mainly, my internal home webserver that I use for proofing out ideas before they go live [ ↩]
5. “Call Home.” “Did you say…Send a Message to Voicemail?” “…no.” [ ↩]
6. For good or for ill; that’s not really the topic I’m addressing [ ↩]
7. I certainly wouldn’t be a technical artist without computers. The position wouldn’t exist. [ ↩]
8. Though, admittedly, much of our modern society relies on computers for smooth operation. [ ↩]
9. Without some kind of virtual projection technology, anyway. [ ↩]
10. It’s the anti-religion! [ ↩]
11. This happens quite often. If I recorded every one of these scenes, I’d have volumes of material. [ ↩]

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