A Clockwork New World 1984451

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed."

The above William Gibson quotation has swiftly become one of my favorites. As someone who has come of age in the US and spent a few months in India over the past decade, I have experienced it first-hand.

However, before I go any further in this entry, I want you to watch the below video. It is one of the most fascinating watches I've had in recent memory.  

Now, then, we can begin. Truth be wrote: I am overwhelmed. There are so many astoundingly astonishing developments happening all around us today, it is scarsome. Yes, I just made up that word. It is a portmanteau of scary and awesome.

Consider, for example, what the above video is about: the Internet of Things. What a startling concept! Legitimately scarsome. Imagine inhabiting a world that is so automated, so in-sync, so streamlined, that any deviation from the "norm" would be considered a threat to civil order. I exaggerate, of course, but think about the movie Minority Report. Society flowed as one in that fictional future--transportation, governance, human living. If you were the cause of any inconsistency in the societal fabric, you didn't have the luxury of being considered underdeveloped. You were considered a rogue. 

The key concept is that of a societal fabric: all the disparate threads and fibers tied together to create a seamless entity. No disconnection, no fragmentation. Seems almost monolithic, doesn't it? You may have figured out the sources of this entry's title. They are four of the most thought-provoking books I've read. I call them the Dystopia Quartet. Of course, Philip K. Dick's writings (one of which is the source for Minority Report)--and numerous other authors'--were terribly prescient in imagining a future ruled by machines. And that is precisely where we are heading. If one were to view the above video from a pessimist's viewpoint, it only confirms mankind's imminent servitude to technology.

I realize the tone of this entry so far has been quite gloomy. But who can convincingly claim our lives would be as convenient without smartphones? Doesn't life seem to come to a standstill without an Internet connection? If you're unable to conjure up data with your fingertips, fuggedaboutit. Being an ostensible throwback when one has taken the time and made the effort to give oneself a solid, up-to-date base is cool. Being anachronistic is not. But that only makes it undeniably clear we are at the mercy of machines. As they go, so go we. Although a popcorn entertainer, Live Free Or Die Hard showcased something truly scarsome: technoterrorism. It is entirely possible to shut a country--the world--down with a few keystrokes. And it is no longer implausible, impossible, or improbable. 

DIKW Pyramid

This surge in human-to-human, human-to-machine, and machine-to-machine interconnectivity is going to result in unfathomable bytes of data. One of the intriguing concepts presented in the video is the DIKW pyramid. When one considers it in that context, it is easy to realize the small degrees of difference between the meanings of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom, even though all four concepts aim to provide enlightenment. Although the prospect of such incredible cross-platform synchronicity and the resulting time-saving efficiency is intoxicating, it would be foolish to not consider the flipside. I guess the only relevant question is: is such large-scale synchronization making us engage more with life or making us increasingly aloof from the granular realities of it? I, for one, am definitely excited about the technological advances and the accompanying across-the-board harmony they promise to provide. But, like most everything in life, it remains to be seen how it turns out to be in the long run.

A perfect example of the rapidity of those advances is we barely have been introduced to the concept of the Internet of Things and it has already been succeeded by something bigger and better: the Internet of Everything. Clearly, it leaves nothing to the imagination. The fact that companies like IBM and Cisco are at the forefronts of these budding revolutions all but guarantees their fruition. The Internet of Everything consists of data, people, process, and things. Every tangible (people and things) and intangible (data and process) entity is going to be a node in a global network facilitating communication and transmitting details about its and its surroundings' conditions. It won't be too long before the term "off the grid" becomes synonymous with antisocial activities.

I've been considering upgrading my 2006 MINI Cooper to a 2013 one for the past few months. Although it has a good amount of miles on it, it is in great running condition. I wouldn't at all hesitate to go on a long road trip in it. But increasingly, I have begun to notice how isolated the driving experience in that car is. There's no USB port, no XM radio, no hands-free call setting, no voice options. In other words, it isn't "smart" enough. The truth is, owning an automobile today is less about the driving experience and more about the technological integration it offers. What good is it if I can't connect my mobile device to the built-in USB port and read the contents of my news feed on the built-in computer screen and compose and publish/send tweets/e-mails by speaking them and having the built-in speech-to-text software convert them?

Long story short, Big Brother is not only real, he's becoming more and more social.