Guess what? Someday soon — if Elon Musk has his way — you’ll be able to don a “wizard hat” that can effortlessly connect your brain to a computer and vice versa. Wearing this cap will give you unfettered control over everything in your life simply by thinking about what you’d like to do. Google searches will take place inside your mind. The lights in your house will adjust as you visually perceive dusk coming on. Your robot butler will know what slippers you want without you even having to ask.
But perhaps most importantly, this invention will allow human beings to communicate without using words; not written or spoken. You will be able to “think” with someone instead of talking to them. No longer will ideas be coarse abstractions defined by old language. No! In the future, crystalline versions of every thought you wish to share will be broadcast, silently, into the mind of another person, where the two of you (or more) will frolic, unadorned by useless words and disgusting prose.
All of this will be made possible thanks to a new company Musk has started called Neuralink. Using this “wizard’s hat,” Elon hopes to advance humanity to take advantage of the full power of computer processing, under control of the vast reaches of our sloppy, disorganized, outrageously powerful gray matter. It’s a fascinating project — one which has some lofty goals that are quite far off — but I found something slightly lacking in the breathless (and extremely lengthy) write-up done by Tim Urban (aka Wait But Why). Let’s put it this way: the word “art” is mentioned one time in about... 36,000 words. The word “hacked” is only mentioned twice.
If we want to get serious about plugging our brains into computers, let’s get better at a bunch of other stuff too. How about we start with safer pacemakers? How about we give students access to information? How about we put some checks on huge, private businesses becoming monolithic and sometimes evil monopolies?
I’m not saying let’s be scared of the future. I’m saying let’s be smart about it. We fucked up the internet pretty bad — let’s not do the same with our brains.
Elsewhere
Opioid addiction is a legitimate epidemic in our world right now. There are lots of stories about how painkillers are ruining (and taking) lives, but I found this New York Times piece about how Prince hid his addiction from others particularly sad. The juxtaposition of Prince the artist and Prince the addict is stunning, and demonstrates that no one — high or low — is immune to addiction. Suffering is universal.
This interview Ijeoma Oluo did with Rachel Dolezal — the white woman who pretended to be black for years — is nothing short of epic. Dolezal comes off as both strangely combative towards the black community and critics, and incredibly sad personally. I hope this is the end of the attention we pay to her, as it’s pretty obvious she doesn’t have anything in the way of meaningful ideas to share. What is more clear now than ever is that her base worldview is not sensitive to or understanding of the black experience in America — in fact it’s quite the opposite. Come for the curiosity, stay for the extremely uncomfortable and real interactions between the writer and her subject.
“You know, people are always saying to me, ‘Rachel, I don't care if you are red, green, blue, or purple,’ so I decided to paint myself as red, green, blue, or purple.”
Dolezal chuckles as she says this, as if it is the most clever and original idea anybody has ever had. I don’t know how many times a white person has told me that they don't care if I’m “red, green, blue, or purple” when they are trying to explain to me just how “not racist" they are—I’ve lost count. I do know that I’ve rolled my eyes every time. As my brother Ahamefule said to me once, “They may not care if I’m red or green or blue or purple—but they sure as hell care that I’m black.”
"The antifa furry movement coalesced around a rallying cry of “Nazi Furs Fuck Off" https://t.co/pSGsQsbZ4a
— Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) April 14, 2017
I think this is an excellent encapsulation of America in 2017. Neo-nazi furries are ruining furry culture for inclusive furries. I can’t really do it justice, so just let me share a passage:
The Furry Raiders’ leader, a man named Foxler who dresses in a fox suit with a Nazi-like armband (no swastika, only a paw print), told The Daily Beast the convention’s cancellation all stems from a big misunderstanding.
“You could say a whole bunch of unfortunate events led to the particular issue,” he said.
Foxler claims he’s not trying to evoke Hitler, never mind his name (a combination of “Fox” and his supposed surname “Miller”), his Nazi-like armband (he says is based on a character in an old video game), or pictures of him throwing his arm up in a Nazi-like salute (an accident, he said).
The perfect Businessweek story told as pretty much no other business publication can: the tale of the “My Pillow” sensation and its founder. Mike Lindell is an incredible schemer and avatar for the American Dream — a guy who pulled himself out of a cocaine habit and into a crazy “as seen on TV” fortune. All because he wanted a better pillow.
Eight-plus years later, Lindell is sober and phenomenally successful. He quit everything—alcohol, powdered cocaine, and crack—after one final party on Jan. 16, 2009, and presides over an empire that’s still growing precipitously. Last year he opened a second factory, saw sales rise from $115 million to $280 million, and almost tripled his workforce, to 1,500. To date he’s sold more than 26 million pillows at $45 and up, a huge number of them directly to consumers who call and order by phone after seeing or hearing one of his inescapable TV and radio ads.
Gotta admit... I want to try one of these pillows.
Finally
This isn’t new by any means, but every so often I like to pull out this amazing Paris Review Art of Fiction interview with William Gibson and remind myself that sometimes work doesn’t mean “work.” Sometimes it means taking a nap. Also, the way Gibson summarizes the science fiction of our current reality is nothing short of jaw dropping. A must read, for writers and non-writers alike.
