Thread: What does it take to network 30Million minds implanted on your head?

Hey people,
Need help on the following things:


1) What does it take to connect the minds of 30million people like the internet? What mode of communication? Would it clot the airwaves? Alternative methods of connecting?


2) Ideas on killing and targeting a specific person anywhere on the globe? Tracking methods?


Here’s the pitch of my idea. In the future, democracy has been given full power to the people because of the Hive Mind. If enough people wanted to kill the president of a country, and had voted to do so; the president would drop dead. The same with every other person in the world. Fear of the Collective masses had begun.


Technically speaking what does it take to do this?

Imagination.

Technically, it can't be done, so make something plausible up.

Originally Posted by darknite_johanne

Here’s the pitch of my idea. In the future, democracy has been given full power to the people because of the Hive Mind. If enough people wanted to kill the president of a country, and had voted to do so; the president would drop dead. The same with every other person in the world. Fear of the Collective masses had begun.

Interesting premise. It could make a good utopian/dystopian novel. Love the idea.

Originally Posted by darknite_johanne

1) What does it take to connect the minds of 30million people like the internet? What mode of communication? Would it clot the airwaves? Alternative methods of connecting?


2) Ideas on killing and targeting a specific person anywhere on the globe? Tracking methods?

Technically speaking what does it take to do this?

Well The Matrix comes to mind. Having everyone connected through a simulated reality. That would certainly connect everyone's mind.

I had thought of something similar, the next-generation internet where the mind is directly interfaced with the network.

In technical terms I don't think there is anyone here (or anywhere) who can outline the details for you because it doesn't exist right now. But from a high level you'd need the same thing as any functional system, namely : Input, Output, Function.

Use your imagination though. For example, the tech to translate messages/commands from a persons mind into an input for the network could be analogous to existing technologies in computers (and in fact would probably evolve from there). In this case, you have the interface between the software (the brain) and the hardware (whatever implants or external devices are required) via drivers, the same way a PC works. It really isn't any different, assuming an efficient, reliable, systematic method for interpreting properties of the mind could be created in a useful way. It's all up to you.

The crutch of this is the "killing ppl through the internutz" business. I don't foresee an issue with the technology side, you can make something plausible up for that, but I think you'll have a difficult time explaining how people allowed a system to be set up like that. Coming up with a realistic reason for people to submit themselves to a system with absolutely no safety from external harm could be tricky. In my mind, the more realistic scenario would be, the tech is all there but there are safety systems built in (like anti-virus, firewalls are for PCs today) so you couldn't be physically harmed or have your mind corrupted by someone else on the mind-internet or whatever.

I think that whole sociological explanation will be far more important than the technology itself for the story because it sounds like the effects of that decision are core to the theme of the story.

Anyhow, good luck with your story.

The idea started during election week in our country and reading an article on forbes about how the internet was giving democracy back to the masses. Elections are nasty stuff. So i get to thinking, why if all of us can vote at real time, and have him (the candidate) impeached, then there would be no problem.

And I took the idea further, what if we voted for the person to actually die?

As for the dangers of being killed without even knowing it. I think there would at least be millions of people voting that you should die.

My ideas include the use of nanobots broadcasting signals to the infrastructure, and at the same time capable of injecting deadly poison to your bloodstream. Or maybe kinda like the apps and freeware on the internet. The Internet system or Hive Mind, existed for connecting people but this genious made a freeware on online voting where they could actually vote on killing a person. In this future everyone has nanobots. And this crazy guy believed that control should be given back to the people.

Failsafe devices included so they could never write anything on your brain.

Now as to what brought this system about is something to think upon. World war 3 has been used to death.

An idea for the MC starts out with this. He voted for the first time using that software in his brain. what he didn't know was that he's the person who tipped the scale. for example, 14M people voted that the president shouldn't die, while the other 14M voted that he should. He was lucky that he's the person who tipped the scale. he was the 14,000,001th person. And now the government's on him.

everything's at a brainstorming process right now, and I'm welcome to your comments and ideas.

Nanobots or AI are too much deus ex machina. They're theoretically capable of anything and make lazy plotting easy.
Instead of poison or bots, you just change the permissions of the software remotely. From "read only" to "write". It's best not to overcomplicate something like that. At least imo.
Stephenson's Snow Crash is recommended reading.

Very true.
Computer hacking is the same way. Take a nerd, give him a terminal and he can do anything that needs to be done.



(Except get laid)

Originally Posted by darknite_johanne

The idea started during election week in our country and reading an article on forbes about how the internet was giving democracy back to the masses. Elections are nasty stuff. So i get to thinking, why if all of us can vote at real time, and have him (the candidate) impeached, then there would be no problem.

And I took the idea further, what if we voted for the person to actually die?

As for the dangers of being killed without even knowing it. I think there would at least be millions of people voting that you should die.

My ideas include the use of nanobots broadcasting signals to the infrastructure, and at the same time capable of injecting deadly poison to your bloodstream. Or maybe kinda like the apps and freeware on the internet. The Internet system or Hive Mind, existed for connecting people but this genious made a freeware on online voting where they could actually vote on killing a person. In this future everyone has nanobots. And this crazy guy believed that control should be given back to the people.

Failsafe devices included so they could never write anything on your brain.

Now as to what brought this system about is something to think upon. World war 3 has been used to death.

An idea for the MC starts out with this. He voted for the first time using that software in his brain. what he didn't know was that he's the person who tipped the scale. for example, 14M people voted that the president shouldn't die, while the other 14M voted that he should. He was lucky that he's the person who tipped the scale. he was the 14,000,001th person. And now the government's on him.

everything's at a brainstorming process right now, and I'm welcome to your comments and ideas.

Ok 2 suggestions :

1.) I'd stay away from using the name Hive Mind in the actual story
2.) the first realistic sounding explanation for the whole system to go into place that popped into my mind is "change". Show that the previous administration was so absolutely atrocious and oppressive that when a charismatic guy came around preaching about change and giving the power back to the people, everyone supported him. It's happened for real in history and has turned out pretty horribly on occasion.

I also agree with mod, in terms of the tech, the nanobots is a little too easy. If it were me writing it, I'd try to stick as closely to the analogy of software and computer systems that exist today as possible. You could even go so far as to describe the evolution of the technology. i.e. "When they first invented the tech, it was a big clunky apparatus so you had to go to special stores to use them, then they made the home edition which slipped right over your head, now they have wireless, no implants or gadgets needed."

Avoid "hive mind" but use "change"????

Interesting.

How about Borg?

Um what? You have made an art of cherry picking and putting words into my mouth.

Okay, "stay away from" Hive mind and "realistic explanation" is change. That better?

Is there something you don't understand? Or that I've misunderstood?


Is there some reason you're feeling picked-on here?

Cellphones. Specifically Crackberries...and texting. Only half-kidding. If you force something on people they'll resist, if you give people something they might not see enough value in it to use it, but if you SELL people on something addictive they're yours.

Shhh...that's my evil plan.

Sorry then maybe I didn't explain. Those are 2 seperate suggestions. By stay away from "hive mind" I just meant the words "hive mind" not the concept. At least for me, it brings with it a lot of connotations that I don't think make sense in the frame of what he is proposing.

The change thing (the concept, not word) makes sense to me because it plays on basic, realistic, human nature which can be adapted from something that has happened in history (for example the rise of hitler)

Ah. So Hitler comes to your mind from "change", not recent POTUS peeps?
I figured you meant the words "hive mind", but assumed you were saying that they had been used, done to death, and had references that would dillute them. And therefore that "change", having been a single-word campaign all over America, would be just as degraded.


Multiply the difficulties in just two minds meshing in the aether by 15 million, and it starts looking unlikely.

I've been using this concept, more or less, in my fiction since 1979. Originally I called it Linked-In. Should have trademarked that one, but shit happens. My idea began with something like a cellphone and/or radio antenna, just a single wire, implanted behind an ear, and a little piece of hardware that could be worn as an earring, and mushroomed into people using their skins as circuit boards. Still do that, and there's some pooling of information, but workarounds have been developed.
Gotta stay away from the term Hive Mind. Make it a pool or something, friggin mindweb, clusterf*ck (John Shirley actually used that one). It's not at all a new idea in cyberpunk-oriented stuff. The difference you can make is in how you treat the idea.