I am no more enamored with the mindless “whole world system connected” Utopia, than any other Utopia.
When a wise philosopher said that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutley” (or words to that affect) he may have been talking of only one sphere of human life, but it is completely applicable to any and all.
There will be nothing great, except to the Google’s of the world, about a single seamless “computer” that not only makes it possible to talk to other people with computers, but has all your stuff and everyone else’s stuff on it as well.
Individuality, not being part of the crowd, and not being the mere commodity for the business model of the one-world computer system is part of human nature. Living like ants on an ant farm, even in the virtual sense is not. It will fail, just as “time-sharing” for computer processing time failed in the 1980s.
Everyone wants their own home, not an apartment. It’s true for our own info and data as well.
But Comrade, only reactionary Enemies of the State refuse to be part of the Collective. We are the Borg — resistance is futile, you WILL be assimilated.
I had a similar reaction to this...
"Talking at the Hot Chips conference, Papermaster said that surround computing imagines a world without keyboards or mice, where natural user interfaces based on voice and facial recognition redefine the PC experience, and where the cloud and clients collaborate to synthesise exabytes of image and natural language data. He said that the ultimate goal is to create devices that deliver intelligent, relevant, contextual insight and value that improves consumers’ everyday life in real time through a variety of futuristic applications."It creeps me out, as did a YouTube video someone recommended to me last year called "A Day Made of Glass...Made Possible by Corning"
While I certainly appreciate creativity, innovation and technical advances, I find both futures to be soulless. Both are missing the need for humans to physically interact with other humans.