Given revelations of internet data surveillance what concerns should be raised about the possibility of brain monitoring devices?
- The first is around marketing and the idea of “opting-out” rather than a mandatory “opt-in.”
As the customer (you and I) have gained more control over blocking being sold to, marketers and advertisers have had to come up with more clever (and blunt) ways to compel our valuable time and attention, with confusing and frustrating results for all parties involved.
Now imagine if marketers had access to the most intimate space on the planet: Your private brain space.There would be no “option to opt-out,” even though all the legalese would say that there would be.
Which gets us to point number 2…
- The second concern that we have is that increasingly, the desire to not participate in social communication is seen as a sign of social ineptitude at best and dangerous at worst.
In other words, the nature of the aberrant act itself is no longer enough to create outrage; the lack of social participation is the driver for primary outraged responses.Which leads to concern number 3…
- The third concern is that we have long sought—as individuals, societies and cultures—to control people under the guise of freeing them from Plato’s Cave.
Brain monitoring devices won’t be used to give us freedom, collaboration and connection.Instead, they will be used to take away freedom, encourage and inflame false fracturing and individualization, and destroy connections between people.
