iPatch™ revisited

Last year I presented the iPatch™ (complete with ironic trademarking) as a satire on the way we look to technology to solve problems often caused by technology. In this case the vast amount of information we recieve via a growing number of technological media. At the same time the iPatch™ is a recognition that the pace of technological change and the increased reliance on large complex information systems is an inescapable reality. The latest issue of New Scientist has an article entitled “The dangers of a high-information diet”, wherein the alalogy of diet and over-indulgence  is explored in terms of possible hazards, to individuals and society, of too much information. Philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that the ready availability of some types of information in itself may be harmful (such as a recipe for making a bomb) but admits that it is dangerous to try to limit access to information. The public will not, and should not, accept arbitrary censorship “for their own good”. Still, people crave information and not all of it is good for us. Perhaps we can take the diet analogy a step further and think of it as information obesity. “After the break, The Biggest Loser: Brain Drain.”