"SCHOOL NA SCAM" OR YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON?

 Elon Musk's Neuralink, Metaverse, and The Matrix. (10 minutes read).

I was on YouTube recently, just scrolling through the app when my attention was drawn to a YouTube video that had Elon Musk in it. He was talking about something that we only had in our imaginations growing up. He was talking about inputting a chip into our brains that will allow us to communicate with tech around us. Not just that, it can restore lost body functions, and even make it slightly better According to Elon. It is said that the chip will be implanted into its first human this year. 

The chip was first tested in pigs and monkeys. The last monkey test had the monkey play Mindpong only by thinking. I think he was with Joe Rogan in that video. (Here is the link if you want to see the interview). Now this caught my attention, because what Elon is trying to do is to take a computer, insert it inside us, and have that computer augment the effort of our brains. I mean, the things he said this chip can do is mind blowing! 

By the way, I think that’s how we eventually become robots, right? One of the definitions of a robot is “a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer.” Okay, maybe not entirely a robot, but we would be in sync or In a symbiotic relationship internally with a computer. I think the word I was looking for here was “Cyborg” at least, that’s what Elon said on the show. Don’t get scared. This is not where I am going. 

“Cyborg: A cyborg—a portmanteau of cybernetic and organism—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts” Says Wikipedia. Yeah, I think Cyborg hits the spot. So, we are going to be cyborgs! (Alright, this is where you run frantically for your lives! Just kidding, we haven’t gotten to the juicy part yet)

Here is where it gets interesting, with the advent of smartphones, our human to human interactions have reduced. In fact, our online reality is almost more real to many of us than our physical lives. We don’t interact with people, but we talk to people, we see them all the time, but rarely interact. 

Interact: communicate or be involved directly. Synonyms: converse, be sociable, mix, mingle, get together, meet, keep company, fraternize, consort, entertain, have people round, get out (and about),· go out, meet people.  

We sure aren’t interacting. Social anxiety is off the roof, people are literally afraid of one another. No one has the energy to go out, or mingle, everyone is an introvert, and they mean that they are anti-social. We only want to interact with our world through technology, or to use a more relatable word; social media. Cyborgs! Cyborgs!! Cyborgs!!!

To make matters even better, Elon is not the only one pulling the big guns, all your tech giants are running on the same track, with Facebook, now named after a popular town in Lagos, Meta (Ebute-meta) has begun building the framework to launch its metaverse. Everyone is buying NFTs, some have begun to acquire space on the metaverse, and it is redefining internet communication as we know it. Now, you can sit in your home, and have an augmented experience. With your token or your character, be at work, in school, and it would all feel real. 

I recently read a post by Olugbemiro Opeyemi (his post inspired me to finally put my thoughts down. Click here to read his posts about the Matrix), where he talked about how there is now a thin line between what is real and what can be conjured. And how our body deals with both the same way. He sighted an example. He said if we saw a movie that we knew wasn't real, our body would enact real emotions. Why? Because our brain simply reacts to what it sees. (You should read the post, I'd paste the link below.) 

This means a time may come when we would be so immersed into technology that the meaningful human engagements that make us humans will be lost. We would be deceived into thinking that we are having these real human experiences. That’s what this article is gunning for--being humans again. Many times, we feel comfortable updating our status to talk about our mood to a crowd that almost doesn’t care, or is too tired to engage us deeply. Sometimes, it is us who after putting out the SOS, lock our rescuers out. Sometimes it is the scenario of the little boy who cried wolf, just doing things for clout and for the buzz. 

We are now so lonely, that those we call friends are those who view our statuses, Instagram stories and respond to it. Our personal lives are now content for the world to see, we become so vulnerable, that what is private is public, and what should be practiced publicly is now private practice. If we wish to be safe, we should learn to be vulnerable around people who love us, and value us. Who will see our weaknesses and protect us, while watching us evolve. Now, we throw our bleeding selves into the ocean full of sharks, hoping that they have enough humanity in them to spare us. 

Studies upon studies have shown the dangers of the lack of human interactions, we are breeding psychopaths, and people who don’t know how to be human. 

Nothing can take the place of a real hug, seeing the face of that one you love, smelling them, touching them. Nothing. I don’t know if it frustrates you but, the more I chat with someone I love the more unsatisfying it is. There is no amount of video call that can replace seeing them. None. I want to be where they are, and just really feel them. Emojis cannot convey that depth of experience. 

It has even affected marketing. Now, digital marketers forget that they are building content and copies for real humans, not cyborgs. The messages are cold, and unrealistic, as though Siri wrote it. Social media influencers are more concerned with the amount of technical followers, more than the humans that follow them. Now, they can tear down a person without looking back. These people they so brutally bring down, in reality they cannot face them. Cyborgs! We are gradually turning into the walking dead!

If just interacting via a screen was enough, we would be satisfied with just watching the videos of our dead loved ones on our mobile devices. We are humans, and we are built this way. This post is not to bash the technology, no, no, no, that stride is good for us all, but these things ultimately are nebulous. We determine the shape and form they take in our lives. We determine what social media is to us, and what we use it for. So, what’s this post about? It’s to really get us to be conscious of how we use tech. It should make life easier, and not make living harder. 

Is it just a tool, or now a master we cannot dare to live without? 

What I am saying is, let’s not lose our humanity, in a bid to augment our reality. 

I was going to talk about the Matrix, but Uncle Ope already did that. Read the post here.