Internet of Things: Implications for Hope & Resilience
Recently came across awesome graphic to help explain the "internet of things" (https://imgur.com/gallery/xKqxi6f/). The main image of this post is just a fraction of the entire graphic! Worth checking out!
The phrase "Internet of things" is very buzzy as of recent times. To summarize, we're very close to point with technology (at least in western civilization and in 1st world countries) that devices, appliances, and their users can be coordinated in ways that meaningfully and practically connect with each other. This is made possible a) widespread affordable internet access (wi-fi), b) devices/appliances that are now more affordable that feature the capacity to connect, c) the innovations to imagine how all these connections can be meaningful and relevant. In way, everything can be optimized or made more efficient with the aid of coordination and tracking.
What's the import for hope? Well some of it's already here. If we're thinking of the goal-setting and achieving aspects of hope, tracking our progress toward goals, being held accountable (to something), and even more aware of our good and bad habits can be empowering. Many people use online diet and fitness tracking applications that coordinate with their devices and even health care profesionals. Or applications that help coordinate their "to-do" lists. Consider the pill dispensory that links to doctors and nurses that indicates when a senior or infirmed "counts." (punny; that's been around for a decade btw). So human potential here is likely huge and still growing in unseen ways.
What's the import for resilience? Having "smart" systems to conserve energy in houses and buildings, maintain vital systems, and avert disasters like Flint are huge. The more connected and accurate these systems are the more proactive communities can be. On the personal side, a system that helps monitor your exercise habits, diet, sleeping, time watching TV or sedentary on the couch, etc. could help prepare for later life health concerns, or keep one's immune system optimally high. This is in some ways an iteration of the "quantified life" (a movement to record and track one's life; Journalist Gary Wolf has a cool TED talk on this: https://www.ted.com/talks/gary_wolf_the_quantified_self?language=en)
For my more critical friends, what impications does the above have? Like in the graphic aluded to in the beginning of this post, there are extreme scary implications like who has or can gain access to this info and the dreaded singular consciousness that automated systems will gain upon being connected to everything. Cue ultron/terminator/matrix like doomsday scenarios. The eventual reality here is likely something we haven't imagined yet, as our current frame isn't there yet to understand it. Very cool to consider the next stage of technological evolution!
