“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.]
