Wow. You take everything you said and apply to it that there
is an exact and equal opposite it’s really not that bad.
For example:
“The smart phone, texting, Facebook, and other such media are perfect for such distributions”
Distribution would not be limited to just one side. The Mormans
are using this tech to the limit and they are growing.
But the most glaring examples of all are the historic reactions
to previous breakthroughs in technology. People were
saying
pretty much the same thing about television and radio.
Go back and look at alternating current all the way
to good ol Rock and Roll and it’s been one threat to
humankind after another. I’ll tell you this, the next
step in this is probably going to be something along the
lines of computer implants or neural tapping.
I would have to agree that there are changes
in our social behaviors but this cell phone craze is just
the step before the next “disaster to humanity”. It’s not
going to stop because it’s what generates wealth. We could
go on and on tossing theories around but in the end I think
in the near future we’ll look back and say “ compared to this crap, smart phones weren’t nothing”.
As for the next step being the neural net, you have no objections to your movements, communications, inquiries, research, being tracked? Enjoy your neural implant. Maybe, Citizen, someday they will identify the patterns or even thoughts which indicate you are a thought criminal.
But every child from conception will believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming, The "war on women", and the evils of the white man even if they are one. They will be programmed from birth, the information will be controlled, and anyone who even thinks of being a heretic and suggesting other than the official version will be rounded up, or perhaps, just shorted out.
The totalitarian potential is incredible! Far beyond just snooping every communication from grocery lists to purchasing patterns to people movements and associations to implied thought.
If you think government isn't ridiculously invasive now, just wait until it can plot the aroma and consistency of your bowel movements, your food intake, hydration levels (not to mention consumption of whatever you consume). The little voice in your head will remind you you have consumed more than your monthly allotment of red meat, and even if you killed and cooked it over a fire, will cause you to be immobilized while the proper authorities respond and collect you for reprogramming.
You seem to think this fragile construct is the wave of the future. If you are correct, I am glad I am a great grandfather.
With the Apple Watch, I looked at my wife and mentioned, "Dick Tracy finally got his wrist radio."
Sure, people are making money. Need I say, there are always people who make money selling people rope to hang themselves?
But the people making money aren't creating wealth, they are middlemen eating the markup, whatever they can entice the market to bear. They are importing all this crap from China at a fraction of the retail price, and making a killing in the controlled release of the next 'big thing', milking the sheep through every minor upgrade and version, creating a market for the 'connected', most of whom spend time laboriously informing their circle of minutiae and trivia, at the 'newest, lowest rate'--and milking the taxpayer for the ones distributed to those who get welfare.
Someone is making a killing, and even if you are frugal in your own life, you still get to pay for other people's.
Do we taxpayers pick up the 22% in taxes and Federal access fees for the Obamaphones, too?
And if you aren't trendy, were mugged (and your widget stolen), in an accident, a natural disaster, all you have to do is go to the nearest payphone and call for help, right? What payphone?
If there are bystanders, they'll be busy taking video to upload to their Facebook or YouTube, so don't expect them to intervene on your behalf.
That is what this is coming to.
When you make the presentation that will make/break your company and some competitor has hacked your neural net, just imagine how focused you will be with all that screaming in your auditory nerves--because you will be the only one in the room who can hear it.
And when the tornado/blizzard/hurricane comes through town and the network is 'unavailable', what will they do? Sit at the Superdome? They won't even be able to look up how to start a fire, much less be able to gossip about everything with their widget.
I may take a different vision, but I don't see these devices as freeing mankind, rather, they are the electronic chains which will guarantee a slavery more insidious than could be previously imagined.
And if you think Government employees watching porn is something now, just wait until the government can tap into your most intimate moments...and has 300,000,000 channels to choose from. Maybe by then, the net won't just tap into hearing speech, and sight, but all the senses.
But someone will be making money...right?
And for those who won't play along, it shouldn't take much to manipulate a mob to go kill them. The media can do that now with television and a little editing--just imagine knowing every 'hot button' to agitate every individual because you can intimately monitor their biometric response to stimuli and analyze what set that off (actually, in theory, that could be done now, just not with the precision a direct link would provide).
That data could be used to distract most effectively at critical moments, but why do that when someone's automobile can be hacked and driven into opposing traffic or a fixed object?
If it sounds like science fiction, maybe, and maybe not.
The one thing no technology really can change is human nature. That something will be abused or misused by some is a given, and often to gain or retain power over others for fun and profit.