The future of ‘electronic signatures’

In 1961, while discussing movies with a friend, I proposed that one day people would walk into a theater, sit in the dark for 13 seconds, receive an impulse, and walk out into the lobby with the distinct impression they’d just watched a movie. They’d feel as if they’d gotten the point and the impact, even though they wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about the movie.

Electronic signature. Transmitted to create the sensation of actual experience.

I still think it’ll happen someday.

In many areas.

You’ll sit at a restaurant under the stars, order from the menu, and a minute later you’ll be hit by a wave that conveys the sensation of steak, lobster, baked potato, champagne, chocolate cake.

You’ll book a vacation to Fiji. Never leaving your couch, you’ll absorb the electronic signature of the trip. The whole works. The cottage on stilts above the beach, the salt air, the scuba diving, the fish dinners, the walks on the beach…

Simulation. Instant.

And unless Presidents are hamstrung and kept from issuing whole hog executive orders, a Prez will be able to declare a state of emergency because a ‘new virus’ has just entered the country—he’ll issue it as an electronic burst—and people from coast to coast will feel the urgency, the fear, the necessity, the sense of security accompanying lockdown orders, the enthusiasm for a vaccine.

The Internet itself will have many shortcuts. Go to a news site, enter your account password, and you’ll be hit with an electronic shot that imparts the impression that you just received the important news of the day. No content. Just impression.

Like now.

How many people really remember the news they read or watch every day online? They only remember the feeling of satisfaction, the feeling of knowledge, the feeling of having been informed.

So why waste time? Just hit those people with an electronic shot that produces the same effects in a second. Bang.

Produce an effect without the traditional cause.