Globalism, while gobbling up the world, has opened our systems to the degree of complexity where to improve the well being of the masses benefits ourselves. We learn, grow, make money...
We've managed to keep people alive better, spread information and educate for advancement of all processes and expanding information. This has been like an omnidirectional explosion yielding the most rapid growth of knowledge and destruction in human history. It enabled the means of consciously manipulating connection to all people, and the end of all individuals.
We're all monkeys, though, messianic and satanic.
A day in the life of Me (we)…
I wake up and immediately check email, Facebook, LinkedIn, news headlines, weather and play a quick game of Scramble with some random opponent - a little like anonymous sex, eh?
Then I actually get out of bed, and do the things incidental to maintaining my physical self – shower, dress and glide a comb across my head.
I drive to work, may make or receive calls on my Bluetooth, in between a podcast. My car, phone, iPad and computer talk to each other and the interconnected telecommunications world. They blab where I am, what I buy, and why. They leak information about my family, friends, church (or absence of), music, art, video tastes, sociopolitical inclinations, affinities to fellow travelers and animal lovers, what I eat, how much money I have, where it's kept and where it's spent.
Here I am, arrived at the office. I've already fielded several work related emails, looked up a few things for a project, and checked in with a couple of professional groups I belong to. I work for hours, most of it on the Internet, and corporate Intranet. The day is punctuated with getting ideas and formats from similar work I find through querying mostly Google. Forums and wikis provide surgical information when I'm stuck.
I contribute as well: provide answers and make suggestions on Taproot and Meetup forums, like and post on Facebook, recommend people's work and vouch for their skills on LinkedIn. I also blog.
I take micro breaks throughout the day and look up pretty pictures, check some celebrity gossip, check bank and trading accounts, etc.
Office time is done. I text Bob - when are you coming home? Heading there now. The drive back is the ride up redux. I might stop at Safeway or Walgreen Drug Store where their loyalty cards register what I buy, and thereby accrue data on a myriad facts like what medications I take, that I don't ever buy beef or pork, have visitors this week, dye my hair red... I might also stop by Costco to shop and tell the world I have 4 big dogs and am addicted to pasta. Then there's Ace, the helpful hardware store because I have a broken toilet, or need to repaint a bedroom.
Home again, home again, Jiggity Jig! I breeze past the eMeter device that reads what electricity and gas we use and when we use it. The utility bills now sport a section that compares our usage to similar homes, and to our usage this time last year.
I've fed and exercised the dogs, made and had dinner and am, to be sure, back online, even when I'm watching satellite / cable television. Wherever I browse, the ads and increasingly clever spam let me know that the Ministry of Love is fully apprised of where I am, what I'm doing - and they're getting really good at predicting what I will be doing, when and why.
The technology, infrastructure, online behavioral patterns have incrementally supplanted our formerly discrete existences. We are a throbbing global organic giant coming to life as big bother screams "it's alive!!"
The creation of this monster has just begun. The transmitters will become transceivers, and the law of unintended consequences will rule the day when both Big Brother and his monster are processed through the blender of reality and reemerge as one.