What if we all become one big brain? Thinking about privacy, today it ocurred to me, that this concept might get completely abandoned in the future. What would happen, if we all become one big brain, where everybody has full access to everybody elses information? Apart from feeling weird at first, would there be any serious downsides? |
We share more and more every day. And the ones who participate in the sharing benefit. I remember when some people said "i will never own a mobile phone. i don't want to be reachable all the time.". They all have smartphones now. Todays kids not only have mobile phones, they have internet connected phones with cameras. And share their experiences online. Tomorrows kids will have google glass or an antenna implemented in their head. Realtime streaming their experiences into the heads of others.
What will stop this process in your opinion?
Sure, we have recently developed ways to transfer thoughts brain-to-brain, but the issues that may arise in the short term if we were to link separate consciences directly are more likely to be classified under the "disorder" category than under the "superpower" category. What if you woke up and had thoughts that weren't yours but from the other person you linked to. Imagine having memories of their past trauma, their first kiss, memories from the pain from the people they lost, memories from the abuses they suffered, the names they were called, the shame they felt. Will you be mentally strong enough to be able to compartmentalize those foreign memories as actually being not part of your lifetime?
Try this: try to remember the last time you checked out a place on Google street view. Have you ever tried clicking along a road so that you could get to see what was in the surrounding area?
Now as you are remembering this, do you remember only the scenery or can you also remember actually looking at a monitor and using your pointing device and keyboard? I'm willing to bet that you only remember the scenery and that those memories you have of those street views could be very similar to memories of places you actually visited, minus the sounds and smells, but you do have to make a conscious effort to differentiate between virtual memories of a scenery and memories of the places that you last visited.
Just visit a few foreign cities (Taipei, Seoul, Akihabara, Lima in Peru ) on Google Street view to try it out and think about what I wrote in a few days, you'll see what I mean.
By that logic you would have predicted that the internet will not happen because "who wants to read all that shit".
You'll probably avoid letting it happen again. You'll remember it before raping, maiming, or torturing someone. You'll remember it before letting someone else get away with it. You'll probably treat the victims a little better as well.