Google Glass or Mind Control for just $1500
Don’t get me wrong, I am not taking a pious stand against technology or against Google. I could never credibly do this, considering that for 38 years I practically made it a mission in life to acquire every new piece of technology that came out on the market. I even made a career out of selling technology for nearly 20 years. However, is it not obvious, that despite any good intentions, flashy technology such as Glass, is intentionally being used as a delivery platform for highly personalized content, being used to guide, manipulate and control every purchasing choice we make?
Perhaps not, because the way in which this technology is being utilized and the content delivered is so subtle, our processing capacity prevents us from being consciously aware of what is going on. George Orwell in his novel 1984 (written in the mid to late 1940s) foretold of a future where media would be used to insidiously control every thought we had and every choice we made. While we may not live in the exact dystopian future that Orwell dreamed up, we ourselves have willingly accelerated and are directly responsible for the process of completely giving ourselves over to whatever the sophisticated scientists of marketing have been given to sell us. We have done this through our hunger and thirst for the latest and greatest gadgets and Google Glass is the next and potentially the most pervasive, dangerous instrumental version we will allow into our lives, to deliver the most powerful wave of brainwashing we are yet to receive.
While our TVs, PCs, Laptops, iPads and Phones have had an ever present place in our lives, increasingly so over the last five years, no technology has the opportunity to get so close to our eyes as to be able to deliver information directly into our cerebral cortex and even more directly into our inner ear, based on the explicit and well documented knowledge marketers have of our capacity and willingness to spend.
Why will Google Glass be a massive success?
With recent well publicized parodies running around the internet, many are projecting that Google Glass is going to be a folly that will never work. Knowing something of technology adoption and how it proliferates, an educated prophecy tells me that Glass is going to be the thing that every person is going to line up to get. Rather ironic really when you think of it. Growing up in the seventies, glasses were the most unpopular stigma that you could have been cursed with. The only thing worse than having to wear glasses, was to have to wear glasses with a patch over one side, because you also had a lazy eye. My point is not to mock people who had to wear glasses, but rather to point out that we do everything out of fear, out of fear of being seen to be different and being left out.
So, how are Google going about making this the item that you just can’t live without? They are making it exclusive and just as the Orwellian Double Speak twists a meaning, will have it referred to as being an inclusive process. Up till now, only developers who registered a year ago, were able to receive a pair of Google Glass for $1500 for Google I/O 2013 (Inclusive process of gaining their feedback). No one else could get their hands on them. Now 8000 winners of ”#ifihadglass” competition have a pair (Inclusively seeking their feedback). These people are happily tweeting and blogging away about how they are so blessed to have a pair (Very inclusive). The subtle marketing genius behind this, will ensure that this inclusive few, (from a very specific demographic), with their blogs and tweets, will whip not only innovator buyers, but also early adopters and the early majority into a frenzy of anticipation, while Google merely takes a register of interest and waits for the pot to boil. This already classical neo-marketing strategy, is being exploited by many companies that have a community or high profile brand, to develop a feverish, irrational level of interest for a new product, before it is even completed…. Very inclusive. All the work is done by bloggers like us, creating a new media storm of free advertising about Glass, before it is ever released. In this way, in a year’s time, Google will already have a virtual line around the digital building of consumers, so many in number, they will have short circuited Geoffry Moore’s Chasm, directly to a late majority on day one of sales, eclipsing anything Apple did with the iPhone.
How it all works?
Simply… It dulls your brain to the point of stupidity by eliminating the need for you to think, suggesting everything you “need”…. an essential component of today’s over informed world.
“Let’s take the shopping list as an example. As a consumer, if I have Glass, I can’t see my entire shopping list, but I just need to see what I need to buy in the dairy section (e.g., milk, cheese, eggs) when I am in the dairy aisle. If I am using time as a construct, the shopping list in my Glass needs to track me through the store: What is next on the list based on where I am in the store versus what I have already put in my basket?”*
With the interaction of your list and the ability of businesses to feed directly into your Glass only an inch from your eye, leading directly into your brain, can no one see how pervasive and manipulative such content delivery will be? Retailers will be able to subtly suggest everything for you based not only on your well profiled tastes, preferences and spending capabilities, (which they already know from their deep knowledge of your credit rating and spending habits), but they will also be able to combine this with GPS pinpoint accuracy of where you are in the store in real time, cross referencing this information with items they want to move quickly, offering exclusive ‘on the spot’ specials, specifically to individuals who they know have a weakness for impulse buying. This new deep level of retailing is akin to giving an addicted gambler a credit card with their name on it, inviting them to a weekend in Vegas. And how do I know all of this??? Not because I am some conspiracy theory nut, but rather because Forrester, the world’s number two technology trend consultancy is already writing up strategies for the likes of Banks, Insurance Companies, Airlines, Hotels and Retailers on how to fit their messages on the 16:9 ratio aspect real estate that will be the screen in front of your eye.
Initial launch partners include CNN, NY Times, Elle Magazine (Hearst), Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Evernote, and Path (and maybe IceBreaker).**
Why do we need to be aware or wary?
Does this have any resemblance to the subliminal ads to buy coke and popcorn in the movie theaters of the 50s? While that supposedly never occurred and was a gimmick of a failing advertising agency (if you believe that one you are even more gullible), the ability for retailers to reach and affect every thought and action is just being invited in for the privilege of $1500. Am I overreacting? We are already at a point of near saturation from information overload from every media point we interact with. Taking this to the closest point of our eyes with a direct feed to our inner ear, will allow every advertiser associated with this technology to become an integral and integrated part of every thought we have.
Numerous well noted studies have highlighted that in our awakened conscious state, we consciously filter and are capable of processing approximately five to nine bits of information per second.***
This is less than a rudimentary calculation on a calculator. By putting Google Glass on our face, we are inviting the core of the eleven million bits of information that hit us every second, to be filled by advertisers, burned like a laser to media, directly into our cerebral cortex via our ocular nerve and through our inner ear into every second of our waking day. Does anybody else share the view that this might be just a little dangerous? This technology may just have the greatest consequences on our daily lives, creating an ongoing deleterious effect that will affect our every emotion and thought, most essentially our ability to think, based on an overflow of influenced input? Employing technologies such as this will be the quickest way that we will pay a $1500 premium for the privilege of becoming malleable mind dumbed sheep, akin to the Eloi in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, simply accepting that it is our fate to be eaten by the Morlocks.
The Oppenheimers of Google Glass need to take a moment to think.
Whoever thought up Google Glass should really meditate on what the purpose of their invention is. Ask: Why is something like this necessary?…. Ask, why can we not live without this? What real difference will it make in people’s lives to empower them? Is this something that will solve inequities in developing countries, or is it something merely to further entertain ourselves into oblivion so that we need not think?
The work on this invention reminds me of those who assisted in inventing the nuclear bomb. They did so on the precept of pursuing knowledge, knowing full well that it was their egoist drive to be recognized as geniuses… fully aware of the deadly consequences the applications their inventions were going to be used for. Perhaps those at Google working on Glass are not aware. So, I call on those directly associated with this project to mindfully think about what they are doing. One mindful thought is all it takes for us to go beyond the mistaken belief that technology is what is advancing human kind. One mindful thought will allow us all to take one step closer to understanding that we were already born with all the technology that we will ever need to advance our species. One mindful thought will allow us to realize the immense power that resides in one human thought, a thought which directed collectively, can and will liberate humankind from all mindless consumerist behavior.
This is my point, what is it that we really need? Do we really need to keep filling our lives with things that constantly distract, entertain, or inform with useless information to a point of information overload, so that we can avoid answering the real question of why we are here and what makes us happy? Can Google please direct some of its energy to helping us answer this question????
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References
*1 Julie Ask’s Blog Forrester Consultant
**1 Julie Ask’s Blog Forrester Consultant
***Bruce Lipton Biology of Belief Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles Hay House 2005
