Last time I mused on some fairly obvious future inventions. I did try to spin the in-ear translator into a storyline involving the 2065 peace negotiations between the Taliban and the west, but I kept coming back to gremlins translating innocent phrases into pork products, and given Daily Science Fiction put a parental warning sticker on my last story over a fairly lame bit of slang I didn't see it having legs...
I'll add a couple of culinary items to the list. Firstly, the microwaveable tin can. I'd pay the premium. Secondly, genuinely hob to table cookware - a pan with a lid that acts like a sieve to drain my pasta but still seals when I want it to, and a body that can take a flame but I can also eat out of; non-stick even when I've gouged it with my knife. If you want to have a go inventing that remember to send me my 10%...
But this posting wasn't intended to be about reinventing the kitchen, although co-incidentally Radcliffe and Maconie were musing on the possibility of cubic peas on 6Music yesterday. I thought I'd predict a black swan that is, possibly, already happening.
The rise of The Off-Net.
We all know people who aren't online because of circumstances, lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, or plain old inertia. They probably make up most of the planet. Here I'm positing another group, a blink-and-you-miss it demographic - those who actively refuse to take part in the Information Age. Those who have opted-out. The Digital Amish.
And opting-out is an activity. It's like sitting in a leaky boat trying to stop data escaping. Actually, a better analogy may be like trying to stop water evaporating, with the rise of CCTV snapping your face daily. Just sitting still may be being recorded somewhere, somehow.
It's hardly surprising some will take minimising their digital footprint to an extreme. We hear a lot about the dark side of the net, whether it be child abuse, personal data wriggling loose, or active snooping on us by governments. We probably don't know the half of it. I'm not the first person who gives a digital shrug to most of it which, when you think about it, is an odd response. It's like we've all been conditioned to, well, not give a monkey's. Conditioned? Mentally poisoned, possibly...
But I know there are people out there who take it seriously. I'd say too seriously but, hey, I'm one of the ones who have already been got. They're Donald Sutherland and I'm Jeff Goldblum, or possibly Veronica Cartwright (hmm...). They're the people who used to wear tinfoil hats but have got more subtle since the 60s. They're the Off-Net.
I included the Off-Net in a story, They Hide in Plain Sight, yet to be sold. In this, in the 22nd century, they're space hippies brought together by word of mouth to worship a new messiah. Not sure it's the most coherent piece I've ever written but, hey, is all of PK Dick's oeuvre? But those are the successors to today's Off-Net, some of whom may still have their parents' tinfoil hats as heirlooms. Who knows who they are or what they're doing today. All I know is that they won't be reading this...
I'll add a couple of culinary items to the list. Firstly, the microwaveable tin can. I'd pay the premium. Secondly, genuinely hob to table cookware - a pan with a lid that acts like a sieve to drain my pasta but still seals when I want it to, and a body that can take a flame but I can also eat out of; non-stick even when I've gouged it with my knife. If you want to have a go inventing that remember to send me my 10%...
But this posting wasn't intended to be about reinventing the kitchen, although co-incidentally Radcliffe and Maconie were musing on the possibility of cubic peas on 6Music yesterday. I thought I'd predict a black swan that is, possibly, already happening.
The rise of The Off-Net.
We all know people who aren't online because of circumstances, lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, or plain old inertia. They probably make up most of the planet. Here I'm positing another group, a blink-and-you-miss it demographic - those who actively refuse to take part in the Information Age. Those who have opted-out. The Digital Amish.
And opting-out is an activity. It's like sitting in a leaky boat trying to stop data escaping. Actually, a better analogy may be like trying to stop water evaporating, with the rise of CCTV snapping your face daily. Just sitting still may be being recorded somewhere, somehow.
It's hardly surprising some will take minimising their digital footprint to an extreme. We hear a lot about the dark side of the net, whether it be child abuse, personal data wriggling loose, or active snooping on us by governments. We probably don't know the half of it. I'm not the first person who gives a digital shrug to most of it which, when you think about it, is an odd response. It's like we've all been conditioned to, well, not give a monkey's. Conditioned? Mentally poisoned, possibly...
But I know there are people out there who take it seriously. I'd say too seriously but, hey, I'm one of the ones who have already been got. They're Donald Sutherland and I'm Jeff Goldblum, or possibly Veronica Cartwright (hmm...). They're the people who used to wear tinfoil hats but have got more subtle since the 60s. They're the Off-Net.
I included the Off-Net in a story, They Hide in Plain Sight, yet to be sold. In this, in the 22nd century, they're space hippies brought together by word of mouth to worship a new messiah. Not sure it's the most coherent piece I've ever written but, hey, is all of PK Dick's oeuvre? But those are the successors to today's Off-Net, some of whom may still have their parents' tinfoil hats as heirlooms. Who knows who they are or what they're doing today. All I know is that they won't be reading this...
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