According to a survey by tech giant Cisco Systems, about a fourth of professionals ages 18 to 50 would leap at the chance to get a surgical brain implant that allowed them to instantly link their thoughts to the Internet.
The study was conducted on 3,700 adults working in white-collar jobs in 15 countries. “I really think it’s the cool factor. When they see something that’s cutting-edge, they really don’t stop to think about the implications,” said Liz McIntyre, a privacy expert and co-author of the book, “Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move.” She said many people have become “brainwashed by the industry” to the point where they think they can’t live without being connected to the Internet.“Look at all the people carrying smartphones; those are tracking devices,” McIntyre said. “What’s the next step? We already have singularity. Having sensors implanted in people everywhere will be the next step.”
All commercial products have sensors, and some day all people could be implanted with brain chips, allowing the people to interact with the products and with each other in a whole new way. To many, that sounds like a brave new world that’s both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. "So you will have a God-like feeling of how people are thinking and feeling at all times. It will get to a point where you won’t have a choice. People will become more like machines,” McIntyre said. “There will be a central intelligence, and they will all act on it. You’re part of it. You talk about mind control? Everything will be known. Everything will be part of this collective, and if you don’t participate you won’t have a place in this civil society. “I think it is very Orwellian.”
Katherine Albrecht, co-author of “Spychips” and founder/director of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, said she also has doubts about the credibility of Cisco’s study. Albrecht said many younger people have been brought up to think all technology is “cool,” and they’ve also become less sensitive to what she calls “body modifications.” “We’ve got piercings. We’ve got tattoos. We’ve got implants, people putting silicon in their bodies, implanting weird things,” she said. “In Japan, there is a trend for putting a doughnut shape in your forehead, so the younger generation has been desensitized to this body modification.”
“I think right now it’s a public relations game trying to promote this technology and trying to convince us all so we readily line up,” she said. “That said, those of us who are thinking about this need to stand up and make our voices heard, because if we’re not heard with a different viewpoint, then people will think almost everyone in society thinks this is normal so I must accept it, too.”
“Prediction being fulfilled and even going beyond the book, ’1984′ (but 30 years later) with willing humanity so controlled that people volunteer to subject themselves to physical implants to ensure connection to their slave masters?”
“Prediction being fulfilled and even going beyond the book, ’1984′ (but 30 years later) with willing humanity so controlled that people volunteer to subject themselves to physical implants to ensure connection to their slave masters?”
