This is a very interesting article. We’re walking right into the very dystopia that so many sci-fi authors repeatedly have warned us about. They were warnings, not a playbook.
What distinguishes a panopticon isn’t merely inescapable surveillance, but the fact that you don’t know when you’re being watched. You simply have to live with the unbearable uncertainty that, at any moment, you could be.
Whether people realize it or not, we already live in a panopticon. Not only are there camera everywhere - on buildings, businesses, homes, streets, phones, cars, etc - but there are other sensors and mechanisms tracking things like your movement, activity, and heart rate.
There was a novel that predicted this decades ago. The main character was so reliant on his AR goggles that when they were stolen in a mugging he was nearly catatonic until his friends got it back.
This is the world we are heading toward, and I don’t know what we can possibly do at this point to minimize the harm to both our environment and our species. The worst-case dystopia seems more and more inevitable by the day.
Sliders, the 90s sci-fi TV show had an episode that explored similar themes with VR. Also the 2020 indie adventure game Virtua Verse also has similar VR themes dominating people’s perceptions of reality to the point that some people spend their whole lives in love a robot that looks like a beautiful person when you have your headset on.
a less obvious, though equally important theme is what Forster refers to as “the sin against the body.” This occurs when people’s intellectual refinement and spirituality advance to such a point that they become disconnected from their physical bodies and are unable to adapt to changing environments.
After reading the synopsis and then hitting that sentence… This Forster mofo understood something deep within us that most people today have no clue about. It’s like we want to disconnect from the world we live in.
Maybe it’s that our combination of self awareness and intelligence allow us to have an internal dialogue. It makes us feel like our mind a separate entity that’s driving our physical body around, and isolating our minds from the messiness of the natural world lets us exist in our more pure evolved state or whatever.
I was admittedly way more into the metaverse (ala Snow Crash, not frickin facebook) and VR concepts decades ago. And I’ve had some great experiences in immersive games including VR. But to flip around the line from The Matrix, “the mind cannot live without the body.” We need to engage all of our senses and live in our environment, and not try to pretend like we’re just another computer on the network.
I work for a company that has decided that they want to move forward with a device that will emit a frequency that allows them to track individual cell phones which they plan to use to target people with ads.
This is a hotel that will know where all their guests are at all times and will use it to tell them what to do.
This is a very interesting article. We’re walking right into the very dystopia that so many sci-fi authors repeatedly have warned us about. They were warnings, not a playbook.
Whether people realize it or not, we already live in a panopticon. Not only are there camera everywhere - on buildings, businesses, homes, streets, phones, cars, etc - but there are other sensors and mechanisms tracking things like your movement, activity, and heart rate.
There was a novel that predicted this decades ago. The main character was so reliant on his AR goggles that when they were stolen in a mugging he was nearly catatonic until his friends got it back.
This is the world we are heading toward, and I don’t know what we can possibly do at this point to minimize the harm to both our environment and our species. The worst-case dystopia seems more and more inevitable by the day.
Sliders, the 90s sci-fi TV show had an episode that explored similar themes with VR. Also the 2020 indie adventure game Virtua Verse also has similar VR themes dominating people’s perceptions of reality to the point that some people spend their whole lives in love a robot that looks like a beautiful person when you have your headset on.
Do you remember which episode? I loved sliders. I’m up for an episode that’ll make me depressed about my present!
Until The Machine Stops, I guess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops
From the Wikipedia page
After reading the synopsis and then hitting that sentence… This Forster mofo understood something deep within us that most people today have no clue about. It’s like we want to disconnect from the world we live in.
Maybe it’s that our combination of self awareness and intelligence allow us to have an internal dialogue. It makes us feel like our mind a separate entity that’s driving our physical body around, and isolating our minds from the messiness of the natural world lets us exist in our more pure evolved state or whatever.
I was admittedly way more into the metaverse (ala Snow Crash, not frickin facebook) and VR concepts decades ago. And I’ve had some great experiences in immersive games including VR. But to flip around the line from The Matrix, “the mind cannot live without the body.” We need to engage all of our senses and live in our environment, and not try to pretend like we’re just another computer on the network.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72890/pg72890-images.html#THE_MACHINE_STOPS
Jesus fucking Christ…
I work for a company that has decided that they want to move forward with a device that will emit a frequency that allows them to track individual cell phones which they plan to use to target people with ads.
This is a hotel that will know where all their guests are at all times and will use it to tell them what to do.
No need for special equipment, when it is possible using wifi see this article for example.
Companies need to stop building the torment nexus
We need to stop building the companies