THESE days there are so many implantations that grow along with the human body, repair themselves, and add to our everyday lives in so many ways that we often find it hard to imagine life without them or to conceive of their earlier fallibility.
The hotly debated subject of inception ages springs to mind as the main example that these technological additions are still not fully accepted. When is ‘too young’ to implant a child with nanos and give them weave-access? Should they experience traditional ‘normality’ before joining the work flow?
Equally pondered is the recording of our lives. Implants that transmit an optical/audial feed at true resolution to be recorded for later reference. While a huge advance for the justice system*, how does such a virtual Panopticon affect behaviors? Furthermore, how does the observing of such an accurate historical record affect societal development?
Imagine if you would, a generation free to watch the daily doings of any individual from the previous century**, as our next generation will be free to do. Then imagine being able to view lives from past centuries or millennia? Would the generational divide disappear, as the sense of a place in time becomes blurred by the influence of immersion in the past?
Of course, I worry too much and am calmed by the thought of how little interest children can show in the lives of their parents. And why am I concerned that its effect would be stronger than ‘normal’ surroundings-based observation and learning? Perhaps children will achieve the impossible and actually learn from the past.
Perhaps when we are all sharing each other’s minds, thought will become the equivalent of action and physical action superfluous. Similarly, historical recordings could then be equal to thought as they also exist without physical action, or physical effect. For our proto-plastic descendants it will all be a part of the daily lifestyle, perhaps never experiencing an other who could confound their habits and memory.
Moving on: spaceskin, or snakeskin, was a recreation in miniature of the snakeskin plating used on space-based cruisers to protect against depressurization from small meteor and combat punctures. The space-skin version coated the body with micro-tech scales that would shed and grow as necessary.
Plate 37: the prototype that with prolonged use deprived oxygen from the body and was shed after a space-walk. Subsequent versions keep a thin oxygen-rich layer between the scales and the astronaut’s skin.
* The ‘justice system’, physically defunct and replaced by the ever-improving algorithm that determines what is a crime and the appropriate punishment, something along the lines of: crime/behavior divided by social factors and influences ± motivation and effect = action (equal to effect of punishment divided by value ± desired outcome).
** Approximately when life-recording began on a large scale. Nearly 87% of the Earth-bound are being recorded as we speak.
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