I suppose we will have to agree to disagree on that one. If you aren’t concerned about the information that others collect on you and you don’t care to imagine how it could be used against you then I’ll stop there

That’s true, but I’m also cynical. Policy makers only have to serve up a phantom to instill fear into the general public and then they can drum up support for policies that appear to serve the public interest; for the sake of “protecting” the public.

There’s plenty of reasons to be fearful or suspicious: corporations who develop all the new tech we use today have shown already they don’t respect our privacy. Our smartphones, computers, and other Internet connected devices are always harvesting data to advertise to us, so it follows that any brain-implanted device could be used to harvest data for similar purposes. Not everyone gives a shit about this one, but there are plenty who would at least like to be paid for the data that is collected from them and used for profit; barring that we should have the right to forbid data collection without consent.

There are, of course, more sinister applications for brain-implanted devices that can interface with the Internet (and if they don’t now, they surely will in the future). I think a lot of us immediately think of the science fiction book and movie, “Minority Report” wherein law enforcement has access to the private thoughts of citizens and arrests and convicts those who have contemplated crime but have not yet perpetrated the crime. Any sane person would never allow the police access to one’s private thoughts, let alone a corporation.

Elon Musk has said his ultimate goal with Neuralink goes beyond merely restoring function to injured parts of the body; he wants to make it possible to save and load memories and with those two functions we may also be able to delete memories too. Imagine someone hacking your memories, it could fundamentally alter your perception of yourself and your reality. You could become a prisoner in your own brain, subjected to the censorship of a corporation or government.

These are worst case scenarios and I’m not saying we are there yet, maybe not even close to that level of technology, but we should be aware of what kind of control we may be giving away to a company or authority by allowing such implants to be installed. I hope that we will use it as a means of improving people’s lives, but I’m very cautiously optimistic as well.

Fair enough I see this conversation is centered around first impressions and dating, but in a more general context it worries me. I see polarization in general as a net harm, because it divides us as people. Creates isolated points of view, otherizing, makes more people comfortable with perpetrating violence against the other because they are ignoring the other’s humanity. I’m not equivocating, tolerance for intolerant opinions is not acceptable, but people can be ignorant for one reason or another, it doesn’t make them evil.

Maybe I’m just in an echo chamber here and that’s why my dissenting opinion is getting so much backlash, but I’ll always advocate for nuance. I’ve met many with rather differing opinions, opinions which I’m categorically opposed to, but further conversation has revealed these people to be good on the whole. And non-violent to boot. We grew and understood each other from a conversation. I see so much bandwagoning on the Internet and all I want is for people to think a little more deeply about it. I get very emotional seeing people go, “Yeah! Fuck them for having that thought!” Because it reflects back at me a fear of being misunderstood, but I choose to speak up in hopes that it will bring about a more rational conversation.

By all means if your gut tells you run, run. All I’m saying is that simply holding a single, opinion is not nearly enough information. What scares me to begin with is that ideas are so polarizing that it turns off our ability to think. Not everyone who holds an opinion is polarized though, some people may be on the fence and that may show in their attitude. A better metric for measuring someone’s moral compass would be how they treat waiters or waitresses or how they respond to animals.

And that’s jumping to conclusions, why would having an interest in a podcast automatically make one make you believe that the other thinks of you as lesser. Adults should have adult conversations with each other.

It’s an interesting study and I understand why people would feel that way, the only thing that rubs me the wrong way about these things is the human tendency to paint someone in a totally negative light once they see the “red flag.” I feel the comments are evidence to that fact. If you know someone who hold offensive opinions you should actually ask them why they hold that opinion. People are enormously complex and their personalities or even morals cannot be boiled down to a small handful of extremely polarizing opinions.

I’m guessing art installation, I can’t imagine why one would build the stalls like that otherwise.