I joking — not joking — still think that it’s at least POSSIBLE that some sort of digital teleplay technology is floating out there in the depths of Big Tech. Which, of course, opens up the possibility of some sort of technology that would do the same shit that Elon Musk wants his NeuralLink to do without drilling into anyone’s brain.
In Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “3001” everyone wears a mindreading device called a Mindcap. I would much, much rather wear a Mindcap than drill a hole in my head for something like a NeuralLink.
And, yet, it seems as though if any form of digital telepathy actually exists, it’s super top secret and never something that would be commercialized for the average person.
There’s a lot of buzz of late about the “death of movies.” And, sadly, I fear some of it may be right. American culture is facing something of an existential crisis because the very idea of any sort of “mainstream” is now beginning to melt away. Identity politics is now so absolute that the legitimacy of any heteronormative story is up for debate in the overwrought conversations of Twitter.
I know I sound a little too Joe Rogan with the above, but it comes from a place of love — a love of movies as an art form.
You know it.
Here’s what I think is going to happen — movies are going to continue to drift into culture insignificance until one of a few things happen. If we stop being force fed movies about people running around in capes, then, maybe people might sit up and take notice. But this is unlikely to happen because you can make a shit ton of money with movies like that, so, lulz.
Another way to “fix Hollywood” would be to end “Woke Hollywood.” Instead of trying to make us more woke, tell us a good story. Don’t worry about identity politics — tell a good story. I want less Beanie Feldstein screeching about lesbian sex positions to a Plain Jane lead in Book Smart and more, I don’t know anything. I only keep ranting about how much I fucking hated Book Smart because I was shamed into seeing it by my center-Left echo chamber and the movie is the epitome of preaching to the audience about how being woke is so important.
But, as I always say whenever Book Smart is brought up — I wasn’t the audience. So if you’re a bi-curious high school girl in the suburbs of LA, you probably loved that movie.
Yet another way that movies may come roaring back is because of technology. It could be that once we fully transition to MX (VR and AR) or, hell, even some sort of Strange Days-like MindCap technology, that movies will, like vinyl, make a big comeback as young people grow disillusioned with immersive media.
The crux of the Hollywood’s current problem is a combination of industry dynamics and the need for it to suck its own cock when it comes to there being a “message” in movies. America is so tightly wound at the moment, that a huge segment of the potential viewing audience is turned off with Woke Hollywood, hence the popularity of message-free MCU movies.
I only get a little upset about this specific issue because I love movies. It’s not that hard to tell a great story in a movie. Hell, *I* want to tell a few of those great stories so bad that I recently bought Final Draft. So, lulz.
But are movies dead? Yes, in the short term. Long term, however, I believe they’ll turn out just fine. We just need a New Era of story telling that harkens back to the early 70s.
This is so frustrating. Elon Musk wants to rummage around in my brain with something that requires drilling a hole in my head and hooking up directly to my wetware. I find this very dumb and misguided because Arthur C. Clarke in his book “3001: Final Odyssey” comes up with a far more practical — and less intrusive — answer: the mindcap.
Now, some context.
There’s evidence that Facebook has, at least, a patent on some sort of mind reading technology. And hardly a day goes by that I don’t use Tik-Tok and think its reading my mind in some way. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does happen, it’s very spooky.
As such, if it’s possible they’ve figured out a way to read my mind in some way via a non-contact solution, why not develop a form of that technology that involves a skullcap of some sort laced with electrodes (or whatever) that touches my skull and allows the same things we hope for with the Neuralink without the risk of accidently being given a lobotomy.
It seems very obvious to me that if you could sell people at $1,200 mindcap that skips the middle step of wearing MX (VR / AR) equipment. It definitely would aid in the adoption of such technology if you didn’t have to overcome the resistance to wearing bulky goggles and allowed people to “see” and “hear” media using their own minds.
But, go ahead Elon, keep drilling holes in people’s heads.
I struggle to figure out what’s going on right now with technology. On one hand, it definitely seems as though Big Tech is pulling a fast one on us with some some pretty fantastical technologies like “Digital Telepathy,” while at the same time…Silicon Valley seems obsessed with the modern equivalent of the old rural party lines.
I want my Mindcap.
So, it’s possible to imagine a rather Dark Mirror-like future where The Singularity arrives…and no one tells us. The power of the Singularity is used deep within the bowels of Big Tech (or an autocratic government) to leech money off of us or to two control us. The general population never knows that hard AI is here and is being used to control us.
Sure, the occasional cool thing may pop out like a “Her” like personal assistant, but the various Singularity-like technologies we’ve been promised will come no later than 2045 won’t be marketed as such. They just will arrive far earlier and be used in some unexpected ways to screw us all over.
The more I think about it, the more chilling it becomes.
Instead of a $1,200 Mindcap, we may simply get the Pompeo Administration using digital telepathy to monitor what’s going on in our minds and if we commit Thought Crime, then, sucks to be you. It’s just wild to imagine something as huge as The Singularity being hidden from us.
It’s like Columbus discovering the New World, then keeping it from everyone in an effort to control the path to Asia. Wow. Just wow.
But I’m a just a nobody. Absolutely no one listens to me.
I have a sense of why Clubhouse is popular — you participate in a Zoom-like meeting while taking a dump. Or nude. Or whatever. So, that causes a lot of powerful people to want to participate. Throw in artificial scarcity and you have the makings of a very popular site.
But, bruh, where is my Mindcap?
If Big Tech would just admit that they can read our minds, then after everyone stopped being shocked, Big Tech could say, “Within 18 months we’ll be selling you Mindcaps for $1,200.”
And, yet, what’s got the attention of Silicon Valley? A digital version of a rural party line. COME ON. It’s all very strange. It’s strange that Silicon Valley is so disconnected from the Steve Jobs ethos of putting a “dent in the universe” that they’re screwing around with something as inward looking as Clubhouse.
Silicon Valley is embarrassing itself right now. There’s all this talk of a “neural link” where you fucking drill a hole in someone’s head — possibly giving them a fucking lobotomy — when there’s a far, far less intrusive solution to this problem: the Mindcap.
I’m cribbing this idea from Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “3001: Final Odyssey,” but here’s the point — wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to lay the technology over someone’s shaved head making someone stupid by accident as part of the development process? Ugh. It’s so obvious and so annoying.
Now, the reason why I even mention this is I have come to believe that the basis for such a revolution in how we consume technology already exists. I’m just an idiot in the middle of nowhere, but I definitely get the sense that Big Tech is using electronics to read our minds in some way. Or, it’s at least possible.
So, Big Tech, instead of thinking very, very small with a digital party line called Clubhouse, why not live up to your ideals of “disrupt” by breaking huge swaths of the economy like it did with the Internet. Why even go through the middle sage of VR – AR using Oculus Rift.
It makes far, far, more sense to throw all your efforts into a Mindcap. People will have to shave their heads, yeah, but so what. You can always wear a wig AND you get to cut out the middle man when it comes to consumption of media, services, you name it.
We’re talking Steve Jobs “think different” levels of transformation of the average, everyday person’s life. Apple, or Elon Musk, someone, if you could mass produce a $1,200 mindcap that was actually functioning in any way at all, you could easily make $1 trillion through first mover advantage alone.
But I know I’m working on some dubious assumptions. Only someone like Elon Musk could throw money at the idea of a Mindcap. Remember, my idea this Mindcap would be completely unobtrusive. No drilling into someone’s head. You lay the technology directly over someone’s bare scalp and the Mindcap augments your existing mental ability and allows you to access the Internet.
It’s just kind of sad that Silicon Valley has lost its touch. For shame, for shame. You come up with smartphone and now you’re too busy stroking one off on a digital partyline to think big.
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