Collective intelligence currently exists in the form of mobile devices, search engines, democratized content, and social media. A move from this current state to one where we are connected via implant would represent a dramatic shift in human condition, a grand unification into one unimaginably powerful cybernetic creature.

This affects aesthetics in the medical sense. Would an implant network act like a sixth sense or utilize the usual five? Would these implants create a new connection between our mind and the outside world, or simply augment what we are seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling?

I’ll pause here to acknowledge that there is reason to be skeptical. After all, who really wants an implant connected to their brain?

However, necessity is the mother of invention. Someone with a neurological disorder would likely be willing to try anything, including attaching an electronic device to their mind, if it means survival. After that, what’s next? Weight loss implant? Viagra implant? How long until implants become normalized?

I understand this is rather wacky, but there doesn’t seem to be any scientific reason we couldn’t become effectively psychic. If we are able to send and receive messages using only our thoughts, are we not telepathic?

Regardless of whether or not fantastical powers become a reality, I want to introduce a concept I call the “horror paradise” to describe the challenge of being tapped into the full spectrum of human experience at all times via technology. As devices make the population more connected, each individual faces the practical and ethical question of what to tune into.

What is a responsible amount of time to spend informing oneself of the horrors of Syria? The gruesome information is available for anyone who is interested, and it is important for the world’s population to know what is going on there: hell on earth. So how often, and for how long, is a responsible amount of time for an American to pay attention to that?

Most people spend some time not thinking about horror, whether it be Syria or the macabre meat industry or mass shootings or people being crushed daily using our transit system. But suppressing thoughts and focusing on the more hopeful and prosperous aspects of civilization gives rise to an intense cognitive dissonance. The result is more pain.

To tune out means to risk these problems spreading or not being fixed. But how does one compartmentalize all of these extremes? Can a contemporarily educated informed citizen feel joy? Will we in our lifetimes be liberated of horror? Probably not. So adults worldwide need to find ways to address it and deal with their cognitive dissonance in productive ways. The alternatives: ignorance or madness.