Poem: "Sufficiently Advanced Reality"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This was inspired and sponsored by mdlbear. It also fills the "pictures" square in my 8-2-19 card for the End of Summer Bingo fest.


"Sufficiently Advanced Reality"


If cyberspace is the Jedi Tree,
containing only what you bring into it

then augmented reality is fairy dust,
enchanting everything you sprinkle it on.

Every picture offers possibilities.

You can trap and train monsters,
name plants you don't recognize,
and even identify human emotions.

Sufficiently advanced reality
is indistinguishable from fantasy.

* * *

Notes:

Augmented reality adds an additional overlay of information onto the physical world.

The Jedi Tree, or Force Tree, contains nothing but what you bring into it. All it does is turn your darker impulses against you.

Pokemon Go is a game that uses GPS to serve localized information to players.

Some AR programs can name plants or other objects.  This has much more serious privacy concerns because face recognition and emotional analysis are things that many people do not consent to having used on them.

Comments

[technoshaman]

Well, of course it is, Mr. Bear. That's why we're called wizards. And they better say that with respect, not derision, because we own their reality.

This is my job.
This is what I do.
The imposition of Order on Chaos.
System on Fact.
Classification on Data.
I measure time in bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, terabytes.
The future has teeth.

And you're seeing all of your worst fear about technology come true.
Not only is big brother watching you,
He knows your PIN number.
Welcome, my son, to the machine.
Your fate is being decided by forces you can't even begin to comprehend
and you feel like a hairless pink fetus
floating in a Plexiglas bathtub
somewhere deep inside The Matrix.

But don't worry, Coppertop.
It's cool.
-- "Technical Support", Ernie Cline (relevant excerpt)

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Whenever I get too worried about that shit, I unplug and walk away for a while.

It won't be much longer until the authorities have become so dependent on machines to do all the work for them, they'll forget how to do it themselves, and people who aren't dependent on machines will be able to ghost the hell out of them. It's already started, and they've done it to themselves simply because the growing inequality makes it impossible for some people to use the system in the first place.

Re: Well ...

[fayanora]

In Hong Kong, protesters were using lasers against facial recognition software, by blinding the sensors.

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's cool. There are a variety of ways to foil face-recognition software. I'm surprised they're not all illegal yet. People are fast enough to ban veils. Sometimes it's Islamophobia, sometimes that's just an excuse. But they all think they have a right to demand access to someone else's body, which is a problem.