I Have A Dream

We're seeing some amazing advances in neuroscience. Today people are taking the first steps towards mental input-output --- such as reading basic thoughts, mental control of joysticks, and stimulation of vision centers. Where could this lead?

Wouldn't it be amazing to have a surgically implanted computer capable of directly receiving thoughts and inducing sensory stimulation? Think of the applications!

• Do away with the whole messy voice, keyboard, mouse etc
  
• Work at full efficiency in any environment doing any activity
  
• Differential GPS capability makes being lost an anachronism
  
• Cellphones become telepathy
  
• High-fidelity virtual experiences of all kinds (nudge nudge, wink wink)
  
• Hook into sensor and actuator networks make your devices direct extensions of yourself: your house, your car, your pet robotic dog, all at your direct mental command at any range, and all acting as additional senses
  

But it doesn't stop there. Choose to share your experiences with others in real time. Experience group consciousness. Weave together many experiences of the same event into an incredibly detailed whole.

There are some risks. For protection, all this has to be optional. But who could shut themselves off from this for long? It's all humanity's dreams rolled into one. (Well, most of them.)

Now imagine that stolen nukes go off in New York, London, Beijing and Bangalore. Tens of millions are dead, hundreds of millions more at risk, and the world teeters close to an all-out nuclear exchange. World leaders are told it is possible to create a virus that will cover the world in hours and provide temporary access to the minds of the implanted, maximising the chance of detecting terrorists --- even disabling any who are already implanted --- and pulling the world back from the brink. It's the only ray of hope, and the plan is executed successfully.

After the immediate threat has passed, citizens are given the option of withdrawing from the emergency cooperative. Such objectors are a potential security threat, and become the focus of the rest of the network. They are, in fact, disconnected from the system lest they interfere with it. It's not a popular option, taken up only by a few eccentrics --- almost no-one who has adjusted to the extraordinary lifestyle of the implanted can bring themselves to withdraw.

Over time, it is judged prudent for the security of the system --- and therefore humanity --- for all implanted minds to be nudged towards approval of the system, to avoid those rare cases where there are doubts. Likewise, they are encouraged to have their children implanted at a young age. Other mental traits that cause social friction are removed ... or if they cannot be removed, their exercise is immediately detected and countered within the mind of the perpetrator. The only remaining external threat comes from the dwindling communities of unimplanted, who are therefore relocated to zones where they cannot endanger themselves or others.

Now unrestricted thought belongs only to the men and women at the root of the system, who control its software and thereby shepherd humanity. What happens to them? Do they automate their oversight and relinquish their power, joining the blissful masses? Do they turn to some new and terrible direction? Or do they err, and all succumb to some terrible catastrophe?

I admit to being paranoid --- but to my knowledge, nothing here is technically improbable. We desperately need a new Orwell for the twenty-first century, someone to terrorise us with plausible visions so we know to flee from the hint of them.