While my imaginings of what an augmented reality would be are based heavily on HUDs, we don’t exactly have contact lenses that display information on what store the girl you’re staring at got her skirt (yet).  However, this doesn’t mean we haven’t started to alter our perception environment.  At least when it comes to sound, we have truly begun to fragment our collective experience.

Through the use of iPods and cellphones, Bluetooth and Blackberries, people are truly living in different aural worlds.  The market penetration of this is amazingly high, especially the younger the demographic.  The impact of this I feel is quite undervalued on a cultural level.  As technology continues to innovate, we will only find additional methods by which to replace our local perceptual data.  Today we have sound, but tomorrow it may be sight.  A sense of touch, next.  Suddenly, you’ve just removed a lot of reasons people go elsewhere while on vacation.

So what will change because of all of this?  I’m not smart enough to even guess, but already we’re seeing some unique changes within the music scene.  As the ability/opportunity to listen to music of your choice has expanded, so too has the desire to listen to more specific genres.  This desire met its answer through jumps in music accessibility, such as P2P systems and recommendation software such as what Pandora uses.    Unsurprisingly, you’re seeing an upswell of popularity in smaller bands, while the industry built up around a “Top 40” model is in decline.  While there are lots of additional factors at play, I’d put forth that the base reason is that people are now able to listen to music wherever they are, and so they’ll choose the relatively unknown song they like a lot versus the popular song they like ¾ as much.  Just as our communal aural environment has begun to fragment over the years, so too has the music industry into smaller and smaller subgenres.

But with that fragmentation, there also comes greater opportunities at connection.  Take for instance the trend for club DJs to have iPod docks on their turntables.  Never again are you out of luck when he doesn’t happen to have the CD of your favorite band, and what you once enjoyed alone, you now have the chance to share with others.

In short, I’m quite curious to see where it all leads.

In surrendering our mass storytelling function to entities whose first priority is profit, we make a dangerous concession: “Tell us,” we say in effect, “as much truth as you can, while still making money.”

This is not the same as asking: “Tell us the truth.”

1. What is the name of the utility which delivers electricity to your home? Who owns it?

2. What are the boundaries of your local utility or coop? What “energy region” do they deliver power to, and where does their responsibility end?

3. Where does your regional utility get their electrons from? Coal? Nuclear? Natural gas? Hydro-power? Biofuels? Solar? Wind?

4. How far away from you is the nearest electrical generation plant that feeds you electrons?

5. How efficient is their transmission? How much electricity is lost between the point of generation and your home or business? Is it more or less than 10%?

6. Is the price of non-peak electricity from your utility below or above the national average?

7. Can you trace the path of gasoline from the place you usually fill up to the nearest port of entry or capture?

8. If you have natural gas in your home, where does it come from?

9. Can you trace the non-renewal fuels used by your utility to the watersheds (mines, quarries, wells) where they are harvested and processed? Is there reclamation of the watershed?

10. Does your local utility allow you to generate your own electricity and feed it back into the grid for credit (two-way metering)?

11. How much electricity do you use in a year compared to 10 years ago?

12. What is your solar footprint? At today’s (2008) consumer photovoltaic technology, how many square feet of solar panels would you need to supply all your current peak electrical needs? (Assuming a shade-free location in your town.)

13. Does your local utility have time-of-use charges that allow you to save money by using less electricity during peak hours? What is the surcharge for peak usage? Half again? Twice?

14. If your household or company produces its own power, what percent of your total use do you cover?

15. Converted to the same units (BTUs or kilowatts) do you consume more power in your automobile(s) or in your home?

16. In a year how much water per kilowatt is consumed to generate the power you use? For extra points, how much water is used to reclaim the land damaged by the energy-extraction?

17. Are there microgrids in your region? (An aggregation of decentralized micropowers such as photovoltaics on roofs into a “neighborhood” or town.)

18. What the insulation factor of your primary shelter? How much power does it need to keep room temperature?

19. Do “wheelers” re-sell power on your power grid? (Wheelers do not own power lines or power plants. They purchase access to power lines and then re-sell it at higher prices on the “spot” market.) How much of your electric bill is from higher priced wheelers?

20. Do businesses have the option of “sheddable” loads in your energy region? (Earn or save money by agreeing to shut down or reduce inflow during high demand?) Does your energy utility penalize you for conserving “too much” and reducing your bill below what they expected?

21. How much of the price of your electricity (per kwh) comes from tax payer funding, public and private bonds, federal subsidies, and how much from private electricity bills?

22. How much of your monthly power bill is “stranded” or “inherited” costs? (Costs not based on electricity you received but past debts for unexpected costs or mismanagement, or that came from grid mergers in which the utility bought a new grid with higher rates and allocated some of the higher rates to your home.)

23. What are the optimal renewable energy places (for solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, or hydro) nearest your home?

Award yourself a green ribbon if you answered more than half of these correctly. Maybe you can help those of us who failed this quiz by recommending tools and techniques that will cure our ignorance in the comments.

While I understand what Mr. Kelly is getting at, and agree wholeheartedly, the trend is going to have to continue in the direction of ignorance on a macro-level.  To borrow a turn of phrase he uses in some of his other essays, we live in an extropic system, one that builds in complexity over time (and in technology, some would argue this rate is exponential).  It used to be that food was grown on your own land, and the people you typically traded with were your neighbors.  Now, we have an entire global industry set up to provide our food, while the clothes you are currently wearing probably originate from multiple countries on the far side of the globe.  It is helpful, but unreasonable, for every layperson to know the intricacies of these systems.  With a cap of 24 hours in a day, we can only keep tabs on so much, and a supermajority of that time will be devoted to sleep, work, or passions.

What instead needs to happen is that there be greater methods of communication between those who do know the finer points of these subjects, and those who do not.  Instead of making each person the safeguard of public interest for every category, we simply need a critical mass safeguarding each category, who can then inform the rest of the group at large.  The internet has the potential to do that, and in some cases has, but we have a long way yet to go.

So far, so good. Except, the fee for early contract cancellation is only $175. Granted, currently contracted AT&T subscribers can’t partake in this system, but I’m sure they have at least one friend not currently with AT&T.  Have them buy a phone with a new contract, and then pay to back out, saving $225.  Voila!

The only thing I can figure is that (1) AT&T will be changing their cancellation fees at the same time they roll out the new iPhone, or (2) they are assuming a very low standard of intelligence and communication in the year 2008. For all of the early adopter’s sakes, I hope it is the latter.