Human Microchip Implant

I shall walk toward my car completely naked and keyless and laughing maniacally and I shall wave my arm over a tiny scanner and the doors will open and the engine will start and the stereo will begin to pump out "Highway to Hell" at a nice respectable skull-thumping volume. And, lo, it shall be Good.

I shall stroll up to any ATM sans wallet and sans ATM card and I shall hold my arm over the screen and immediately withdraw four hundred dollars and then turn around to the big shiny vending machine and wave my arm again and get myself a nice bag of toxic neon-orange Doritos and a Diet Mountain Dew so I can poison my body in the American tradition without inserting a single piece of needless pocket change.

It is all possible. It is all just on the cusp. All we must do is welcome the sinister intimations and the positively draconian implications and say a big warm slightly terrified hello to the new, FDA-approved implantable microchip, coming soon to a hospital and a Starbucks and a bleak government agency and a human dermal layer near you. Very, very near you.

Have you seen it? Did you check out the pictures? Microchips the size of a grain of rice, programmed with all manner of data and inserted just under your skin and it's all completely legal and government approved and it's happening right now. I mean, who knew microchipping your pet and implanting livestock would lead to this? Oh right -- everyone, that's who.

The wait is over. No more Philip K. Dick sci-fi fantasia, no more far-off Orwellian Big Brother. We are there. Or, rather, here. This new chip is already being implanted in medical patients for the alleged purpose of tracking their health needs and speeding treatment and it is right now being used in the flesh of employees working in high-security areas to ensure they don't swipe top-secret pens and classified pads of Post-it Notes.

Which is to say, you have been warned. Human skin has already been penetrated. Alarms are already sounding because it's one of those things wherein you can't even fully comprehend all the weird and creepy and potentially dangerous possibilities, but it doesn't even matter because all you need to hear is those four magic words: Microchip. Implant. Human. Flesh. And all your intuitive senses go, whoa.

Oh sure, the initial benefits will appear harmless and helpful. They will say the chip will mostly be used for health reasons and they will say it's to be strictly monitored and there is no way the tiny implants could possibly be corrupted because it's just a cute little itty-bitty microchip containing cute little itty-bitty bits of helpful medical data to help doctors diagnose you ha ha sucker.

This is what they will say. This is how it starts. This is how it always starts.

But that, of course, is never where it ends. Already we can imagine the likes of John Ashcroft, salivating noisily at the idea of inserting similar chips directly into the skin of every swarthy foreigner and every tofu-sucking liberal commie protester while they sleep so the government can track your movements and erase your Social Security number and stomp down your door the minute you buy a used copy of "How to Make Cool Thermonuclear Warheads in Your Bathtub." This much is a given.

But it's what happens after that where things get sticky, treacherous, spiritually appalling. After all, personal information is a form of knowledge and knowledge is power and the new chip is all about who knows what about whom and the government would dearly love to know it all, especially about you. What's stopping them? What's preventing every citizen from getting a nice implant and considering it a wondrous boon? Not much, really.

Think it can't go that far? Think the populace will resist, or they can't possibly do this without our knowing? Think again. The first step is getting the public to accept the new technology as benign and beneficial (i.e., it's for health!). The next is to make it appear all fun and commercial and ultraconvenient (i.e., score drinks at cool clubs without money, just like they already do in Spain!)

The third step is, well, whatever the hell they want.

So then, let us flip it over. Let us embrace the evil, given how we appear to have little choice. Let us make our wish list now and spell out our all-American capitalist desires for this new technology because we might as well get