“Thousands of people in Sweden have inserted microchips, which can function as contactless credit cards, key cards and even rail cards, into their bodies. Once the chip is underneath your skin, there is no longer any need to worry about misplacing a card or carrying a heavy wallet,” Moa Petersén writes for The Conversation. “But for many people, the idea of carrying a microchip in their body feels more dystopian than practical.”
“Some have suggested that Sweden’s strong welfare state may be the cause of this recent trend. But actually, the factors behind why roughly 3,500 Swedes have had microchips implanted in them are more complex than you might expect,” Petersén writes. “This phenomenon reflects Sweden’s unique biohacking scene. If you look underneath the surface, Sweden’s love affair with all things digital goes much deeper than these microchips.”
“So why are Swedes so happy to put microchips into their body? One theory put forward is that Swedes are more prone to sharing their personal details because of the way the Swedish social security system is structured,” Petersén writes. “This myth of the ‘naive Swede,’ who innocently trusts the government and Sweden’s national institutions, is an exaggeration – which has even been noted by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If it is part of the explanation, it is certainly not the whole truth. More convincing is the fact that in Sweden, people have a strong faith in all things digital. Swedish people have a deep belief in the positive potential of technology.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last July:
Like it or not, it’s the next logical step. At first, it’ll even be optional. Welcome to a Brave New World. We’re surprised it hasn’t come sooner.
SEE ALSO:
You WILL get microchipped – eventually – August 10, 2017
Wisconsin tech company to start microchipping their workers – July 24, 2017
[Attribution: TNW. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Lol. Yeah, I’m cool with an Apple Watch.
That’s one nation from the free and civilized world that is fearless. Number 14 on the Global Peace Index and that’s pretty good too.
Are you sure that’s fearlessness? Isn’t there an old saying about a fine line between courage and stupidity?
There are lots of quotes that go along those lines but I highly doubt that the Swedes are stupid.
The Education index from 2015 ranks Sweden at # 19, that’s pretty excellent.
Still it’s always a possibility but in this case I’m skeptical.
Those Swedes put the “scanned-in” in Scandinavian.
(I don’t know about the -avian part. Something about birds.)
Probably better to go with scrutinized birds for that one.
I inject my body wtih Lays chips regularly. Sometimes I prefer Wise or Utz.
Doesn’t sound Wise to me. 😉
First chip in a human, later a human in a chip, or that seems the linear trend. An otherwise intelligent and wise friend looks forward to merging himself, if it were possible now, into a machine. I completely disagree.
Yep, won’t be long before you can’t do business without a mark like this. Coming soon, to the first w in www.
And of course there’s this…
“The second beast of Revelation 13 will cause ‘all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name’ (Revelation 13:16-17).
t mac, true and it won’t be immediate. There will be a gradual trend and suddenly “for our protection and safety from terrorism” it will be mandatory.
In order to even get in the building, you will have to have a chip to verify who you are. Then, of course, we all see now how the immediate charging of our accounts will happen. Viola` no more cash needed, Just a chip (or the “mark”).
Swedish Fish.
No thanks.
Ludafisk?
Nothing more permanent than the temporary, nothing more mandatory than the optional…
Forgive me for being a cynic, but really? 3500 folks out of a population of ten million? How does that 0.00035% of the population generate statements like, “But for many people, …” and “This phenomenon,” and “Swedish people have a deep belief in the positive potential of technology.” How does this even rate an article? And while we’re at it, why am I taking time to bad-mouth it?
Dr. Billy, you are obviously not a doctor in a technical field. Your % is only off by two orders of magnitude.
“… Swedish people have a deep belief in the positive potential of technology.”
So do I… but unless it’s for some kind of medical treatment, I won’t stick tech in my body.
As soon as I read the word medical my thoughts moved from “nasty government” to the explosive potential of a chip for. medical information. Start with medical history, Rx Lists, contact information for emergencies and doctors, etc. As long as it is read/write approach that patients can keep current then I’m happy. If I can include digital copies of imaging (like CT Scans and MRIs) then I am overjoyed.
Toss in credit card data that is physically downloaded from a physical bank and I could care less as long a fraud is covered.
Both my wife and I have gone through a total of 7 cancers. It was the “the positive potential of technology” that had kept us alive. I’m all for that.
666
“We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.”
The Mark of the B____t. Coming to a neighborhood near you?