Neil Postman was an optimist

Postman suggested, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that we'd all read Orwell's 1984 but ignored Huxley's Brave New World. (That's my paraphrase summary anyway.) As I noted in a previous post, we find ourselves in a hybrid dystopia. I call, as my next witness, the Verichip(TM), or, more generically, the RFID (radio frequency identification) V-chip.

This nifty little doodad is a personal identification "chip" planted subcutaneously, usually in the upper arm, which, when queried by a certain radio signal, replies with an ID code unique to the owner. Think of it as a miniature ID card like the one you swipe to get into a secure office building, only you never have to worry about losing it because it's permanently placed under your skin.

Brianstorming uses of this technology could occupy hours - and interesting ones at that: Banking. Shopping. Keeping track of perverts and other criminals out on parole. Voter identification. Storing vital medical information. Locating lost or kidnapped children, or senile old folks prone to wandering off, or absent-minded professors who forgot where they live.

Now let me do a preemptive strike against those who cry, "It's the mark of the beast, that's what it is!" I don't understand John's prophecy in Revelation as well as I'd like, but I do know this much: You can't get more than a couple dozen words into that book before finding out it deals with events that happened quite a few centuries ago. (Don't believe me? Try it.)

Okay, so it's not the mark of the beast. Back to Neil Postman again, for some good advice. In a speech he gave titled Informing Ourselves to Death, he advises us to look beyond the techno-marketers - whom we suspect are giving us only the upside - and find the downside. Every technology, he explains, involves tradeoffs.

Although V-chip technology has been around a few years, it's rather new to me, so I haven't plumbed the depths of its downside. The privacy concern, however, springs to mind immediately. I don't particularly relish the idea of having my every movement tracked, my shopping habits analyzed, etc. No, I haven't bought into that hooey about constitutionally-protected privacy rights. That nonsense is founded upon a logical fallacy. But there are areas of our lives most of us would agree ought to remain private; and we're perfectly free to legislate accordingly. After all, we would frown upon a police officer following someone around 24/7 without very good reason, yes? With the V-chip and a few thousand super-cooled database servers, we'll each have our own personal black-and-white-with-a-cherry-on-top shadowing us by day and night. (Hiya, Mr. Orwell. Long time no see.)

Not to be outdone by the surveillance society, the consumerists will find a way to make a buck off this technology as well. Using their databases and some uber-cool algorithms... can you say "targetted advertising"? Toll roads already make use of similar chips via readers embedded in the pavement. You drive over the reader, and it scans your vehicle for a pre-paid or billable chip. Combine the V-chip ID with such readers, and throw in dynamic billboards and, well, you see where that's going. (Hello again, Mr. Huxley.)

So you're driving to work and the billboard advertises a special on 15,000-mile service for that Beamer you bought a year ago. (Yes, they know.) That's fine. But suppose you're still driving that 1989 Camry, frugal fellow that you are, and every other billboard is another car commercial urging you to upgrade? Or suppose, since they have your medical records as well, your morning drive becomes a gauntlet of ads for adult diapers, hemorrhoid ointments, erectile-dysfunction treatments, hair-growth goop, diet pills.... It's Gmail gone terribly, terribly wrong.

And what of some of the most promising benefits? Tracking kidnapped kids, for instance? Well I'm no child-molester, but if I were, the first thing I'd do when I snatched one would be to grab a scalpel and start digging in an arm! Or maybe a few zaps with a stun-gun would disable the thing, I dunno. Ditto for V-chip-tracking of parolees or sex offenders. (You don't have to be clever to figure this stuff out; Hollywood will do it for you. Just watch Minority Report again.)

And to really blow the V-chip out of the realm of the reasonable, people are already claiming to have hacked and cloned it! (Can you say "identity theft"?) The best part of that article was the final paragraph:

"Oh, and lest anyone get overly worried about drive-by Verichip identity theft: that is probably not a big deal. Their biggest security feature is the absurdly short read range, which is restricted by the tiny antenna. As long as the user stays at least a foot away from any unsecured person or thing, there is very little risk."

So in other words, as long as you don't sit next to anybody on a bus or subway or airplane or in a movie theater, don't stand in line at the post office or supermarket, don't eat at crowded restaurants, don't spend the night with anybody you don't know well, etc., you're probably safe. I feel better already.

Technology is neither good nor bad, of course. But too often when we discover a new technology like this, only two words come to mind: Ch. Ching. In a world where technophiles and marketers are stomping hard on the gas pedal, somebody needs to be tapping the brakes a bit, lest we outdrive our headlights.