Google’s new glasses: Geeky dream or just more information overload?

By David McElroy · April 6, 2012

Google’s new Project Glass is going to be a very polarizing thing — if the actual product ever goes on sale. Some people are going to be thrilled to experience “augmented reality” through a pair of high-tech glasses, but some of us are already at the limits of information overload and don’t want our reality any more augmented.

If you haven’t yet seen Google’s promotional video for its new glasses, take a look at the bottom of this article. Instant reactions to it have been very mixed. Many in the geek world are salivating and ready to line up to buy them. Others are listening to experts in the field say that what Google is promising isn’t really possible. Still others wonder if they’re just plain dorky or if they’re likely to create problems. (This short parody of Google’s video paints what might be a realistic picture.) The Washington Post had a good wrap-up of other reactions.

I can tell you that I don’t want the things. I’m no Luddite. In fact, I love technology and keep up with it religiously. But augmented reality delivered through wearable glasses is something I not only don’t want, but it’s something I’ll do everything I can to stay away from. I already have information overload in my life. The last thing I need is to have more graphical information intruding into my thoughts as I walk through life.

The idea behind the glasses sounds logical. They’re supposed to be sort of like an assistant popping up useful information in front of your eyes when you need it. If you’re meeting someone, it can tell you how far away he is. If your subway station is closed, you can get a map showing how to walk somewhere else. If someone sends you a text message, it pops up and you can reply. If you see something you want a picture of, you tell the glasses to take a picture and where to share the picture (on a Google service, of course). You get the idea.

When I’m walking around through life, I don’t want a computer deciding when to interrupt my field of vision to tell me something else. I already have access to all of the information and services that this new thing is supposed to provide, but it stays in my pocket. It comes out when I want to see it, but it stays safely tucked away when I’m not interested or when I’m busy doing other things. I decide when I want it. The Google concept seems to be very, very intrusive to me.

And that’s the core of why I react so strongly against this. It’s intrusive and it doesn’t give me access to anything I don’t already have access to.

We’re said to live in the Information Age, but I frequently wonder if we’re not floating in so much context-less information that it’s not doing us any good. This flood of information isn’t helping us to understand people, ideas or ourselves. It’s not giving us new insight about the world.

As much as I love technology, I’m feeling uneasy when I realize how this information technology is rewiring our brains and robbing many of us of the insight that makes life worthwhile. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the hardware and software that are making themselves so much a part of our lives, but I fear that some very smart people see the trees very well, but they don’t have much conception that a forest is even there.

I don’t want to give up my technology. Anybody who’s been around me much knows that I’m constantly connected to the online world through my MacBook Air, my iPhone and my iPad. So I don’t want us to give up technology or connectedness. I guess I just feel that it’s already intrusive enough — and maybe it’s time to stop and spend some time disconnecting a bit. Maybe we need more insight and a bit less new information.

If you want augmented reality, be my guest. It’s not a direction I intend to go. I strongly suspect it will end up being a geek fantasy that never delivers on the promises of its promoters. Even if it does, though, I don’t want it.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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