Snow Crash is right around the corner.

‘Mind over matter’ no longer science fiction

Sitting stone still under a skull cap fitted with a couple dozen electrodes, American scientist Peter Brunner stares at a laptop computer. Without so much as moving a nostril hair, he suddenly begins to compose a message — letter by letter — on a giant screen overhead.

10-15 years from now we’ll look back at these days as the infancy of brain control and the “Matrix“.  The technology is only going to get better.  So you can look forward to the day when you strap yourself in a chair, have your body fed intravenously, plug your brain into the Matrix, and live in Worlds of War craft land, Pirate World, The Old West, The Future, The Past, or whatever tickles you’re fancy.  

It’s the Holodeck come to life!

I see this as an inevitability, but I’m not so sure it’s a good thing.

ok wait, maybe it can be a good thing if I can insert myself into the Phoebe Cates swiming pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, ok that would be a good thing, but other than that.

Ok wait, if I could also plug my brain into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory, and party with the Ooomp Loopa’s,  that would be worth it I guess, but that’s it really.

Oh yea, I almost forgot, one of the bummers about being mortal is we don’t get to see how it all ends.  Does the Big Bang eventually retract and the Universe collapses on itself?  Or will existance just go on forever?   Will humans finally meet other intelligent life out there?   So I think it would be important for me to plug in and have a burger at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Ok.. so to summarize…

Plugging your brain into a computer is a bad thing,  unless you can…

• Smooch with Phoebe Cates, circa 1981
• Spend an afternoon in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory
• Have a meal at the Restaurant at the end of the universe

Other than that.. forget it.  What a dumb idea.