Everybody Got Their Something

I’ve been pondering a couple of items that crossed my path during the past week…

The Last Hippie

The first caught my eye while reading a few works by notable neurologist Oliver Sacks (you may know him from this).

In An Anthropologist on Mars, Sacks describes observing a fascinating patient named Greg F., a 1960’s radical hippie who is stricken with a grapefruit-sized tumor right in the middle of his “higher consciousness” stage.  When the massive tumor is surgically removed, he recovers but is unable to remember anything since the late 1960’s or to make new memories.  Greg remains frozen within the counter-culture, politically radical mindset of that era and shows no desire to learn new ideas or change.

Sacks eventually discovers that music from Greg’s “locked in” era brings him great joy, as he’s able to remember it vividly and fully connect with the experience.  He describes taking Greg to a Grateful Dead concert where the familiar tie-dye visuals and musical atmosphere allow him to immerse himself in what his brain has retained (though the newer Dead songs do confuse him during the show).

The overall narrative of the story is that Greg has to seek out and remain within a 1968 mindset.  He has no choice.  It is simply where his brain forces him to live.

Sacks’ story takes place in 1977, but imagine Greg today, armed with a MacBook Pro and all-you-can-eat internet.

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Delusions as Social Media

The second is this New York Times piece.

This particular story covers the concept of clinically delusional – as in acutely experiencing psychosis – individuals finding or forming communities on the web that allow them to indulge in these (false) beliefs with impunity.  Mind control.  Paranoia.  Intricate government conspiracies.  You name it.

Like minds find others to commiserate with, wild stories of “thought insertion” – as one example – are shared, and the whole cycle feeds on itself and expands.  Afterall, if someone else is experiencing the same government mind control conspiracy, how can you be losing your mind?

It must be real.

The Times quotes Dr. Ralph Hoffman, Yale psychiatry professor, who points out that more and more of his research subjects are admitting that these web communities confirm their own fears and experiences:

“The views of these belief systems are like a shark that has to be constantly fed.  If you don’t feed the delusion, sooner or later it will die out or diminish on its own accord. The key thing is that it needs to be repetitively reinforced.”

Web 2.0 to the rescue.  Or not.

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The Tribal Mind

And therein lies the secret sauce of the internet: extreme hyperselectability.

Every single one of us can build our own massive haystack of needles, one where we know how to find each tiny needle every single time we want or need it.  All day, everyday.

Politics.  Music.  Food.  Dating.  News.  Literature.  Fashion.  Ethnicity.  OS.

We can select out the world we desire and trash everything else.

Once you become good at selecting out for your interests on the internet, you can begin to predict how you will get along with members of your community before you even meet them. The deal going in is that you already agree on something fundamental.  Try doing that with family.  With family you’re forced to get along, to compromise, if you want to function while being in the same room together.

The question I’m left with is…are we regressing into some sort of technoprimative tribal culture, one merely updated with all the latest and greatest cutting edge communication technology (and over greater physical distances)?

And if so, is this ultimately a good thing for human relationships?

Neil Postman, PBS NewsHour, July 25, 1995:

When McLuhan talked about the world becoming a global village, and when people ask, as you did, about how connections can be made, everyone seemed to think that the world would become in, in some good sense more homogenous. But we seem to be experiencing the opposite. I mean, all over the world, we see a kind of reversion to tribalism.

What is it about all this globalization of communication that is making people return to more–to smaller units of identity? It’s a puzzlement.

If this is the new norm I’m ready for arguments in favor.  I’m ready to hear how dividing along ever-increasing hyperselective cultural lines is a boon to humanity, about how we are going to find ourselves better off fifty years from today.

Will we see benefits from increased specialization in areas such as science, or are we really just setting ourselves up for endless exploration and discussion of 1960’s music culture?

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And with that I present, for your enjoyment and distraction…

Imagine the Coolest Gadget Ever

Technology.

My lifetime, just a blip of noise in the long song that is human existence, has been marked by advances in technology that have changed nearly every aspect of daily life.  We are now bound to hundreds of mainstream, common pieces of technology for most of the day.  Nary a moment goes by without the lid on our MacBook open, without the iPhone’s friendly chime singing to us.  We are always on, and we know firmly that we’ll never go back.  These are the tools that we’ve always needed to organize our world, be more productive, and live amazing lives.  Put simply, we are in love.

And while you can tell that we’re almost there at this point, I believe even bigger things are just over the horizon.  The era of the Super Gadget is so close, it has to be just around the corner.  Innovation moves so quickly and seems only to accelerate with each passing year.  Something big is coming soon, you can feel it.

The truly revolutionary device. The one that will put everything before it to shame, that everyone will want to use.  The one that everyone will have to use.

Imagine a device that you can take anywhere with you, seamlessly.  One that is big enough to store a nearly-unlimited amount of information, but so compact that you almost never think about it being there.  It is so seamless that it travels with you everywhere, even during sex or while taking a shower.  No longer an on-or-off decision, this device’s amazing intelligence is with you, helping you, for every moment of your day.

Imagine having the world’s most cutting-edge technology at your fingertips at any moment, with zero latency, and without so much as a single button to press. One that is updated with new information and features constantly, without any downloads, or plug-ins, or new installs of software.  One that learns with every passing moment that you possess it.  No seasonal upgrade, no new model to buy every year, and yet constantly improving it’s capabilities.

Everything that you need, one device. It does what we think any great piece of technology should do right now, things like word processing, communication, and turn-by-turn directions.  But it goes so far beyond, allowing us to do things until now thought unimaginable in one gadget.

Imagine being able to carry something with you that actually helps you evaluate human relationships.  One with smart-learning technology that allows you to recall past events in real time that present you with data on all the people you’ve ever met, quickly enabling you to consult the accumulated history and make smart decisions about who to spend time with, who to befriend, and even who to fall in love with.  A semantic web of real world data, tailored to your life, available everywhere instantly and at any time of the day.

Imagine holding a technology that constantly processes the flood of information traveling through your body at every moment; and without so much as a click, regulates such things as your body temperature, your heart rate, your breathing, even your balance – and uses that information to inform you almost immediately if something is amiss or needs attention.  One that frees you from these concerns so you can concentrate on living life.

The world’s most complex data source, and yet yours to use whenever you need it. Help with simple daily tasks like preparing a delicious meal for your family, repairing the timing belt on your car, choosing a great book to read to your daughter, or using CPR in an emergency.  And it all happens without ever having to fumble with a touch screen or any user interface.  Flawless integration, always on.

Now take it one step further.  Imagine the unlimited possibilities of having essentially the perfect device with you at all times.  Picture the confidence that comes with owning such a technology.  You would have no boundaries. The dreams you have would no longer seem so far away, or so challenging.  You could create beautiful music like Beethoven.  Design buildings with a flamboyance that surpasses Frank Lloyd Wright.  Write a story with more layers than one penned by Phillip K. Dick.  Dream up a world of characters more colorful than Jim Henson’s.  Maybe you would paint something even more surreal than Dalí.  Sing as beautifully as Maria Callas.  Or conduct wild experiments like Thomas Edison.

You might even have the gall to discover something completely new, perhaps a cure for disease.

All made possible by a device that has so much processing power that you would struggle to use much of it for most of your life.

Imagine.

That you don’t have to imagine.

Because you already own one.

And it’s entirely in your head.

Version 1.0

- Originally published at 1938 Media -