Meet Me On Toothbook

"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."

--Scott McNealy, co-founder, Sun Microsystems, 1999

Internet-connected toothbrushes.

They're not here yet, but Carnegie Mellon University professor/game designer Jesse Schell says they're coming.

What's your first thought, reading that? Mine can be summarized thusly: ?!?!?!

I read this on today's Facts and Arguments page in the Globe and Mail, read the explanation, and goggled. Naw, I thought. That'd never fly. Would it?

I asked a bunch of people at work for their thoughts on Internet-connected toothbrushes. The people my age or older invariably went what the hell? WHY? The people half my age split themselves into two camps. Roughly half the yowwens simply shrugged their shoulders, as if Internet-connected toothbrushes were inevitable, and rather boring. The other half immediately said something like so everyone can tell if you brush your teeth or not. THEN they shrugged their shoulders, as if this was of no great importance. A couple of them thought a minute after shrugging and said oh! so companies could offer you free toothpaste, or replacement toothbrushes, stuff like that.

Get that? The decrepit people were clueless, as they so often are. The with-it folks, almost without thinking about it, quoted the article nearly verbatim. And didn't seem to take issue with the idea of people knowing whether or not they brush their teeth.

Brave new world, that has such things--and people--in it.

Social engineering. It's something the right wing accuses the government of trying every time something new comes along. I find it darkly funny that the real social engineering over the coming years and decades is going to come not from government, but from those corporations the right wing adores so much. Imagine a future wherein we're all slaves to the expectations of strangers and the incentives of faceless firms. Now imagine such a future coming to fruition without a shot being fired.

The possibilities are limitless, and a little unnerving. You could go to the store and pick up a bunch of groceries; when you get home, your emailbox might have suggestions for dinner recipes, based on the stuff you bought. Or competitors' coupons. Or an admonition from NutritionNow.com about those cookies you really shouldn't have put in your cart, didn't you see how bad they are for you? Or--this really bothers me, for some reason--a list of things your neighbours buy, that you should too (and they're getting your list too, never fear.)

Excuse me. I have to go brush my teeth.