I don't think that things would be that simple. You still need to learn how to use that knowledge and how to utilize the information given via the data jacks to the situation at hand. I already possess an external memory systems called Wikipedia and Oxford English Dictionary, as well as system for making complex mathematical calculations in a matter of seconds, called a pocket calculator. Putting these things in my head would make it far easier to access the information and would make these external memory systems part of my own memory. I do imagine, that this would come quite handy, but I'd still have to learn, what to do with all that info.
I'd add that the "relational" or "social" value of what you do with information- Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? Does it benefit you/others, or cause harm?- would come into it, too. Are you "downloading" information on how to fly a helicopter to rescue people from a burning building, or to commit an act of violence?
You can study chemistry to produce medicines... or cook up a really addictive substance with a chemical structure that's just outside the scope of existing laws...
I think the kinds of technology folks have been discussing don't necessarily "change people", for exactly the reasons that Lightice has mentioned. What you do with the technology- and, by extension, with the information- is up to you. And what value or meaning the action has, is something to consider. But certain technologies wouldn't necessarily shake things up the same way that, say, fusing identities or switching physical forms would.
I think one could make a case that cosmetic/plastic surgery is related to several ideas that informed foot-binding, tribal and ritual scarification, tattooing, corsetry (both male and female), the use of cosmetics, the whole fascination with exercise technology, even certain dieting techniques... So I don't see it as the expression of that new an idea, or that radical.
Just an extension of already existing trends. Perhaps more informed by secularism and capitalism and whatnot than those other types of modification... but nonetheless related to them.
(It's interesting to note that a female Iranian journalist and her editor were arrested, imprisoned, and released a few years back for publishing a positive article on cosmetic surgery for women- the writer argued that surgery was a
matter of choice and personal freedom- and that some types of plastic surgery are quite popular among the youth of Tehran; that cosmetic surgery to achieve a "Western look" is increasingly common among nouveau riche and middle class Asian women and is already quite prevalent among Asian pop singers and actors and actresses. Some examples of a technology having interesting impacts in social contexts other than our own...and of how matters of choice in relation to technology take on social, cultural, and political meanings.)
Same thing with prosthetics and the idea of "downloading" information. We might think of crutches, canes, artificial limbs made of wood or ivory or whalebone... or of the first written texts, the printing press...
If there's an airgun in that cane, or something like a rocket-propelled grenade in that prosthetic limb...
Tools to achieve a desired end. The particular end changes over time, and this results in changes to the technology, but there are similarities in the technologies, enough to make the comparison between books, online texts, and downloaded information possible.
And sure, a lot of this stuff is troubling, from a certain perspective. But I'm not sure how deeply these particular technologies- the real ones and the imagined or predicted ones-
change us, per se. Maybe they just make certain trends or tendencies more obvious to the observer. Maybe they cause us to think about those things- the trends and tendencies- and then our perceptions change, and that change in perception and awareness
seems and
feels like radical change.
Still, I think we're talking about tools, as opposed to things that are even more unsettling. (Although there's something unsettling about how certain humans use their tools- or misuse the tools, or cut corners with the tools. But I'm not sure that's true of all people, and I don't think it says much about human nature
as a universal.) But technologies that challenge assumptions about human
nature, or about sex (as in biologically male, female, or...), or about the relationship between the external and the internal- now there're some things that are
deeply disturbing and pretty darned fascinating and hard-to-get-one's-brain-around...
Simon's ghost wrote:
Would we even still go to school? Would school become this place where you just have to go to a couple of hours once in a while to download the mandatory knowledge of the era? Would thought control become even easier to authorities?
That last one is an interesting question. Don't cable and satellite television, the Internet, and print journalism- political blogs, radio and television talk shows, newspaper and television reporters' connections to their sources, etc.- already raise the same issues? Propaganda isn't always something along the lines of
Triumph of the Will, Cold War-era
Pravda, or the worst examples of Stalinist kitsch. Sometimes it's far more subtle. Would this tendency towards subtle or "soft" propaganda become more pronounced, given the technology we're discussing, i.e. "plugs" or implants? Or would it simply become more noticeable as we become increasingly aware of, or "hip" to, the attempts to manipulate us, and might that awareness suggest more opportunities to resist control?
Maybe it's not the technology, but what you
do with it, how you respond to the information...
And to the attempts to manipulate you through information.
I agree with Lightice: I think
SAC deals with what happens to folks who don't think about information, about the
nature of information, as something that can be manipulated, used to achieve desired results. I also agree that the episodes- and maybe our lives?- suggest that we should think about that sort of manipulation.
As for school... Would that be a good or bad thing? Seems to me that a lot of industrial and postindustrial educational systems are about the "downloading of the mandatory knowledge of the era..." It's just done differently from what you've proposed. But the idea seems to be the same.
POSTSCRIPT: It seems to me that digital technology offers a lot of opportunities to look at stuff that falls outside of "mandatory knowledge" but sheds light on required-reading, "these are the facts" education. If one could access or download or cross-reference documents while studying, it might actually improve one's education, or provide a deeper meaning or different take on "facts".
We might want to consider something like the University of Virginia's massive The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War project:
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
I wouldn't mind being able to download or access that information when discussing or thinking about American history- when I'm not near my computer. And I don't think doing so would make someone lazy, or devalue the meaning of an education; one has to pay attention to what one is reading/accessing for the broader picture- the context- to emerge.
Similar projects provide students and readers with access to documents that aren't available to anyone but specialists or to people who don't mind incurring expenses- travel, food and lodging, etc.- just to look at a single document. As the online or CD-ROM versions of the documents are hyperlinked and cross-referenced to other relevant documents, these sorts of projects are useful and pretty darned cool.
They're also a type of tool that was unimaginable not so long ago...