North is the New Black
- Scott Cohen
- Jan 3, 2017
- 2 min read
SSShhhhh. Don’t tell my parents but I am a cyborg. They don’t know. They flipped out a couple of weeks ago when they saw a girl with her hair dyed blue at the shopping mall in Boca Raton, Florida. Imagine their reaction when they discover that I inserted 2 titanium rods in my chest in mid-October. And then two weeks ago I permanently attached a computer chip with a compass encased in silicone to this new anchoring system. Oh mama.
I have the North Sense. I am a cyborg. Part human. Part machine. I am not crazy and I am not extreme. I don’t have any tattoos. Other than my ear lobes I have never had a piercing. I am 51 years old. Married. Normal. But I decided to take a step out of my comfort zone and into the future. One day everyone will do this. Not exactly this but everyone will be enhancing their senses.
It has been two weeks since I connected. No going back. Did you ever meet anyone that uses some transformative technology like email or a smartphone and then later decides to go back? Doesn’t happen. Please don’t text me. Just send a fax.
How did I ever live without the North Sense? It already feels like a real body part. But this is not about body modification. This is about mind modification. And that is what makes this transformation so special.
The current trend is towards artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, analytics and sophisticated algorithms that threaten our daily lives and our future existence. Everything we know is being transformed, enhanced and in many cases replaced (including people) by computers. I don’t fear technology. I don’t fear the future. I embrace change. But the North Sense is the opposite of this trend.
The information I receive from the North Sense is not stored on a hard drive or cloud server. It is stored in the same place the information I receive from my nose is stored. My brain. The only algorithms processing the information are my thoughts. And all this new information and new processing is making me stronger. Stronger by the day.
My relationship to space has changed overnight. When I walk into a room full of people I suddenly realise that I am aware of the room in ways that they are not. I am not the same as them anymore. They don’t see what I see. My sensory palette has a new colour and it is called North.
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