Adam Barker, Journal Article

The Year 2999

Adam Barker

The year is 2999 and the turn of the millenium is upon the world once again. The world has finally been united into one system of government, after the worldwide depression of 2567 when the governments battled for control. When the new system of government was introduced the first order of that fateful day was to make everyone an equal by demolishing the common currencies of the time.

With the inevitable mass digitalization that followed the establishment of the new government, people are now to be connected through new neural interface technology to one big networked interface. So we will now have the option to share our thoughts with the person beside us--or not. With this new technology there will be a small wireless device implanted just inside the ear that sends and receives all the differing digital signals. There is little need for common language any more, as once we connects ourselves to the network our digital receivers will convert all the signals into ones that the brain may process accurately.

Since digitally reproduced objects are the newest thing, due to the depletion of almost all natural resources on earth, while connected to the network we will be able to manipulate objects in many different ways. Such as if the object were designed to break on impact from a predetermined height or speed, you could just send out a signal to the manufacturer that your object broke then they could reset the settings on it and then it would be back to normal.

You may be saying right now, why not give the reset options to the people themselves instead of having the manufacturers regulate them? If the handful of greedy people left in the world had access to the replication and reset functions, then that would compromise the safety of others, as weapons have been completely abolished and the general public has no protection against them. So the regulation of such technology is essential to the new system in order to hold the world in its unity.

Borg Near the year 2845, the new government started to investigate opportunities created through robotics. They soon developed an artificial optical implant, which could take light signals and convert them to digital signals. Even though normal organic eyes already convert the light into comprehensible signals for the brain, the new implant allows the eye to connect to the neural interface network faster and more efficiently. This new implant did much more than improve efficiency; it let the brain take the image received by the implant and process it, and send it out over the network to other recipients with the same implant. They could then view the image and see through the other's eye. With the development of this optical implant, however, came problems. If a person were to have two implanted, the brain would tend to reject them both, as it cannot handle the pressure of converting the light signals to digital images from both.

With special new age holo-imaging systems, which are very rare to find anywhere on the planet, people are able to create anything they want on a whim. This is another one of those technologies that the government is regulating due to its potential for overthrowing the new system. With the holo-technology, objects are created using light particles, which hold together and can be as strong as anything imaginable, or as weak as a frail leaf. Therefore, the technology is not allowed to be released into the general public. For now, it still sits in the basement of the highest government offices.

Over all, the New Government has done an exceptional job at integrating the new digital systems and having the public accept them. No one had thought that it would be so easy, except for the fact that it did save the world from the greatest depression in its history.

Though the explanation of the neural interface network given to the public was vague and lacking in description, everyone seemed to accept the idea. It wasn't so easy to sell everyone on the idea that all the objects that they owned weren't really the real thing; instead they were just digital representations. Somebody even got the explanation that all objects were just a ball of different switches that the manufacturers turned off and on to create what they now see in front of them.

A ball of switches! How crazy is that? Connected to everyone else from anywhere via neural interface! Digital objects! Holo-imaging! Optical implants! No currency! One 'Organized' government! Could or would you be able to accept it? What kind of future is this? This is only one representation of how the future may be. Be it for the better or the worse, I guess it all depends on your own expectations, fears and dreams.