If They Imbed It…You Will Obey

Do you remember a time when getting chipped meant advancing the profits of potato chip makers by buying a bag of their thoroughly unhealthy yet delicious offerings?  Me either.

Evidently, USA Today wants to take the word “chipped” and turn it into a delightful, lazy summer afternoon company picnic that everyone will be participating in…whether you want to or not.

You Will Be Chipped…Eventually

You will get chipped. It’s just a matter of time.

In the aftermath of a Wisconsin firm embedding microchips in employees last week to ditch company badges and corporate logons, the Internet has entered into full-throated debate.

Religious activists are so appalled, they’ve been penning nasty 1-star reviews of the company, Three Square Market, on Google, Glassdoor and social media.

On the flip side, seemingly everyone else wants to know: Is this what real life is going to be like soon at work? Will I be chipped?

“nasty 1-star reviews”… tsk, tsk, tsk!  What kind of freedom loving behavior is that? On the bright and cheery flip side, USA Today tells us that “seemingly everyone” is wondering what real life will be in the not-too-distant future and does it involve having a foreign object imbedded in a body part?

The answer from USA Today is a delightfully affirmative “YES”!  Or if you prefer…get used to it.

More from this depressing piece of rot:

After years of being a subculture, “the time is now” for chips to be more commonly used, says Amal Graafstra, founder of Dangerous Things. “We’re going to start to see chip implants get the same realm of acceptance as piercings and tattoos do now.”

In other words, they’ll be more visible, but not mainstream yet.

“It becomes part of you the way a cellphone does,” Graafstra says. “You can never forget it, and you can’t lose it. And you have the capability to communicate with machines in a way you couldn’t before.”

Yes, indeed.  It becomes a part of you…just like that annoying yet addictive cell phone has become. And absolutely no harm has come from cell phone addiction, right?

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?

She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.” via theatlantic.com

So cheer up, America. Getting chipped is going to be one cool ride into a future of imbedded everything. It’s for convenience, after all.  A wave of the hand or other implanted body part and wahla!, you’re free from that annoying and cumbersome task of producing your credit/debit card or employee ID.  Thank God…what a chore that was!

To finish up from the depressing drivel from USA Today…

Ten years ago, employees didn’t look at corporate e-mail over the weekend. Now they we do, “whether we like it or not,” he says.

Be it wearable technology or an embedded chip, the always on-always connected chip is going to be part of our lives, she says.

What a bummer the modern era has become!

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” ~  H. L. Mencken

 To combat this bit of ugliness, we offer the following:

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048 (Freiburger Barockorchester)