We're Cybernetic Creatures

I know I talk a lot about the encroaching technology in our lives, and that at this rate we'll end up as Borg, although I doubt the Borg are watching YouTube videos of cats in cardboard boxes.

So while this isn't any great revelation, consider it a check-in on the cybernetification of the species. Take a look back at my blog post, The Hive, from 2006 when I first got on Myspace (yes, Myspace) as the first line in the sand on this line of observation, then come back for a quick drift check.

We went to a friend's house last night for dinner and the OSU game. Not that I'm a football fan, but it's an excuse to get together. It's interesting how it takes an event to get together, but let's step back even further -- we were getting together in Canby which is about 70 miles from where the game was actually happening.

So, that's part of my cybernetic bit -- we don't even think about the fact that the events we get together for require a connection to a huge technological infrastructure. You can say, 'Hey, it's just TV,' but then you're discounting the miracle of remote viewing, which until TV came along was just a fantasy of the paranormal.

But then the event itself wasn't just watching a game miles away -- a couple folks wandered into the living room to play music. Yes, actually on instruments. Although the piano was an electronic piano and she was complaining that it was 'out of tune.' Her brother confirmed it with an iPad tuning app that he says works better than his fancy tuning equipment.

Then I noticed she had it set to 'old time piano' not 'grand piano.' Flick of a switch and the whole experience changed. No tuning forks, no wrenches on the strings, just an adjustment of reality based on the information fed by impulses in microchips.

The kids were in another room playing a video game based on the Pixar movie Up. And while kids have been playing games in other rooms for years, the quality of the worlds in the video games are blurring the lines of reality. This was a two player game, but so many games people play these days are connected to the Internet and other people, again in that Borg like fashion of telepathy on another level of existence facilitated by technology.

Finally, I got out into the garage with the grandad who was showing me his '47 Ford coupe. Beautiful old car, with air conditioning, power steering, satellite radio and LED turn signals. Even the Ford nameplate on the trunk lights up as an extra brake light. It has been assimilated.

I was so struck by all this casual technology that I had to come home, sit down on my laptop, and record it in the hive mind by posting a blog and sharing it on my social media channels, connecting to the other nodes of my network of friends and family.

And the assimilation continues.