all right so let's take four subjects
that obviously go together
big data tattoos immortality and the
Greeks right and the issue about tattoos
is the without a word tattoos really do
shout so you don't have to say a lot
and tattoos tell you a lot of stories if
I can ask an indiscreet question how
many of you have tattoos a few but not
most what happens if Facebook Google
Twitter LinkedIn cell phone's GPS
Foursquare Yelp travel advisor all these
things you deal with every day turn out
to be electronic tattoos and what if
they provide as much information about
who and what you are as I need tattoo
ever would
what's ended up happening over the past
few decades is the kind of coverage that
you had as a head of state or as a great
celebrity is now being applied to you
every day by all these people who are
tweeting blogging following you watching
your credit scores and what you do to
yourself and electronic tattoos also
shout and as you're thinking of the
consequences of that it's getting really
hard to hide from this stuff among other
things because it's not just electronic
tattoos it's facial recognition that's
getting really good so you can take a
picture with an iPhone and get all the
names although again sometimes it does
make mistakes but that means you can
take a typical bar scene like this take
a picture say of this guy right here get
the name and download all the records
before you utter a word or speak to
somebody because everybody turns out to
be absolutely plastered by electronic
tattoos and so there's companies like
face comm that now have about 18 billion
faces online here's what happened to
this company there are other companies
that will place a camera like this this
has nothing to do with Facebook they
take your picture ledge height to the
social media they figure out you really
like to wear black dresses so maybe the
person the store comes up and says hey
we've got five black dresses that would
just look great on you so what if Andy
was wrong here's Andy's theory what if
we flipped this what if you're only
gonna be anonymous for 15 minutes
well then because of electronic tattoos
maybe all of you and all of us are very
close to immortality because these
tattoos will live far longer than our
bodies will and if that's true then what
we want to do is we want to go through
four lessons from the Greeks in one
lesson from Latin America why the Greeks
well the Greeks thought about what
happens when gods and humans and
immortality mix for a long time so
lesson number one Sisyphus remember did
a horrible thing condemned for all time
to roll this rock up it would roll back
down roll back up roll back down it's a
little like your reputation once you get
that electronic tattoo you're going to
be rolling up and down for a long time
so as you go through this stuff just be
careful what you post myth number two
Orpheus
wonderful guy charming to be around
great partier great singer loses his
beloved charms his way into the
underworld only person to charm his way
into the underworld charms the gods of
the underworld they release his beauty
on the condition he never look at her
until they're out so he's walking out
and walking out and walking out he just
can't resist he looks at her and liz's
her forever with all this data out here
it might be a good idea not to look too
far into the past of those you love
lesson number three Atalanta greatest
runner she would challenge anybody if
you won she would marry you if he lost
you died how did hype ominous beater
well he had all these wonderful little
golden apples and she'd run ahead in the
role a little golden apple she'd run
ahead he'd roll little golden apple she
kept getting distracted he eventually
won the race just remember the purpose
is all these little golden apples come
and reach you and you want to post about
them or tweet about them or send a
late-night message and then of course
there's narcissus nobody here would ever
be accused or be familiar with narcissus
but as you're thinking about narcissus
just don't fall in love with your own
reflection last a lesson from a Latin
American this is the great poet
Henry Spartacus when he was threatened
by the thugs of the Argentine military
whom - he came back and said oh come on
how else can you threaten other than
with death the interesting thing the
original thing would be to threaten
somebody with immortality and that of
course is what we are all now threatened
with today because of electronic tattoos
thank you