After a long stretch of watching TV with two 13 year old boys on a rainy evening, they began joking about all the pharmaceutical ads. “Using this drug could lead to death. Ask your doctor before taking…” During a prime-time ball game the boys took note of the same warning, smile now, maybe die later! These unpronounceable drugs that could kill you share identical features of almost all technologies in one regard: innovations have costs and sometimes participants who desperately, hopefully look for answers to their pain will end up paying the ultimate price.
Recently, Google reported that its self-driving cars have been in 11 minor accidents, none of which were the cars fault. Throughout the past 50 years NASA lost many astronauts when shuttles and rockets exploded. Auto makers deal with death frequently when switches, brakes and airbags fail to operate correctly. But technology improves and forges ahead. Tesla has joined in the statistics.
Hasn’t it always been this way? When and if Google’s driverless car is consumer-ready, the FCC may require a warning label: “It drives itself and may crash and cause death”. No matter, purchase orders will set records.
Any new technology must go through development and testing and approval phases. Marketers have jumped onto a whole new concept when they say we should connect to everyone everywhere in a Sharing Economy. The idea is about knowledge sharing and in order to arrange this, wearable tech is becoming a billion dollar market. The bio-feedback features put your brain and heart metrics right on a network for you to see and those whom you choose to share with. Another idea is the Understanding Economy which proposes individuals give up self-identity in exchange for a greater homogeneous identity through real-time neural connections offered in products first bio-implanted then networked to a cloud and finally, socially consumed. The end of you.
All this to ask the question: As we become more about the “internet of things”, will there be a human toll to pay as there was with previous technologies? Are the promises of sharing your bio-data all-benefit-no risk? The shift in new digital innovations occurs not only by their invention and adoption but also by how they are introduced to society: tech innovators interject a powerful ideology implying, if you do not use the product, you are a populist, you are stopping innovation, you are denying others their right to understand and share with everyone. The ideology carries social pressure to align one’s life in a universal socio-economic network. This is inclusive of psychology and neurology and genetics - all the sciences in the new "pharma age." In this regard, they tell us we’ll heal each other and learn to enrich others by sharing our minds and bodies. It took about one decade to get the U.S. opioid addicted. So much pain. What if there is a shift to social separation pain, loneliness and discriminations pain because you have neither time nor money to give yourself away to the network?
RPW
Recently, Google reported that its self-driving cars have been in 11 minor accidents, none of which were the cars fault. Throughout the past 50 years NASA lost many astronauts when shuttles and rockets exploded. Auto makers deal with death frequently when switches, brakes and airbags fail to operate correctly. But technology improves and forges ahead. Tesla has joined in the statistics.
Hasn’t it always been this way? When and if Google’s driverless car is consumer-ready, the FCC may require a warning label: “It drives itself and may crash and cause death”. No matter, purchase orders will set records.
Any new technology must go through development and testing and approval phases. Marketers have jumped onto a whole new concept when they say we should connect to everyone everywhere in a Sharing Economy. The idea is about knowledge sharing and in order to arrange this, wearable tech is becoming a billion dollar market. The bio-feedback features put your brain and heart metrics right on a network for you to see and those whom you choose to share with. Another idea is the Understanding Economy which proposes individuals give up self-identity in exchange for a greater homogeneous identity through real-time neural connections offered in products first bio-implanted then networked to a cloud and finally, socially consumed. The end of you.
All this to ask the question: As we become more about the “internet of things”, will there be a human toll to pay as there was with previous technologies? Are the promises of sharing your bio-data all-benefit-no risk? The shift in new digital innovations occurs not only by their invention and adoption but also by how they are introduced to society: tech innovators interject a powerful ideology implying, if you do not use the product, you are a populist, you are stopping innovation, you are denying others their right to understand and share with everyone. The ideology carries social pressure to align one’s life in a universal socio-economic network. This is inclusive of psychology and neurology and genetics - all the sciences in the new "pharma age." In this regard, they tell us we’ll heal each other and learn to enrich others by sharing our minds and bodies. It took about one decade to get the U.S. opioid addicted. So much pain. What if there is a shift to social separation pain, loneliness and discriminations pain because you have neither time nor money to give yourself away to the network?
RPW