small area of social change caused by the bionic contact lens. No more
"double bagger birds", i.e. no more ugly women so ugly that they need
two paper bags of their head while making love in case the first one
breaks. The guy's got a PhD but it's his sense of the future that's his
true wisdom. It's a brutally British phrase and he's talking about the
end of ugliness.
Imagine a world when digital overlay over the real is possible all the
time. It might not happen for a century but eventually people will
become able to be fused with technology in ways we can barely comprehend.
One way that's starting is the overlay of information on the real world.
This is Articulated Naturality and augmented reality. People may think
that this would never be a permanent feature of their lives in their
lifetimes but that's what people said about the internet a decade ago
and within a decade 99% of phones will be internet connected and
augmented reality a hasbeen technology.
So what if people who were 'ugly' (different from the consensus
construct of beauty) could be who ever they wanted without resorting to
plastic surgery. Or the person who can't stand to see ugly people can
overlay 3D avatars over people.
In a hundred years people will still be people but technology will have
advanced. What if people are still trapped in the value of physicality,
of beauty over other attributes? What if there are whole new options for
people to conform or not experience non-conformity?
There are philosophical questions of what is beauty to an individual and
there are sociological question or perhaps more humanitarian questions
suchn as how do we help people to enjoy but not overvalue physical
beauty in their relationships, interactions and expectations of people.
Those are harder to answer and to act upon. They're for another lifetime
perhaps.
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