The Price of Silence is a writing project that I've been working on for the last few years. It began in the spring of 2009 with an idea. I was taking an epistemology class for my philosophy minor. Epistemology is the philosophical study of the mind and thought. My presentation was a lame examination of Global Warming Conspiracy Theory. Anyway, in one of the presentations, the guys examined wikipedia as a database, and compared it to the human brain. One of my classmates put forth the following question: What if the human brain could access the internet? From that time forward, the question really weighed on me and I found myself thinking about it more and more.
I had always had a fascination with cybernetics, but it had been a romantic, heavy science fiction kind of interest, with prosthetic limbs, implanted weapons and other such nerdy things. In early 2008, I had started to think more practically about cybernetics, with things like sub-dermal cell phones implanted next to the throat.
My initial concept was to write about a protagonist who was unique, who had a computer in his brain that was being used to manipulate his course of actions. This concept changed and evolved.
At the Bingham family reunion, Summer of 2011, I flippantly threw the my idea around my Ryan Bingham, my little brother, as well as my Uncle Bill, my cousin Adam and a few others. We talked for hours about how network capable computers implanted in our brains could completely change everything, from advertising to warfare, from politics to family relationships. One example: art shared at the moment of it's cognitive genesis. We went on and on about these ideas, and I received very strong encouragement to pursue this project.
Brainstorming began, and I started to outline the story, the protagonist, and the major events that I wanted to include in my novel. I started to realize that it was a story that could not be told in one installment, so I began outlining The Price of Freedom and the Price of Peace. In January 2012, I began work on the manuscript. The first chapter took me months to write. It is more of a spiritual and emotional introduction to the book than an introduction to the characters, tech or world. Writing has been slow, but steady, and right now the manuscript is around about 60 pages. I've recently started writing Chapter 7, and it's a blast. It's an exciting read, full of passion, deception and political intrigue. I'm seeking out interviews with various authorities in order to grant my text a level of authenticity. The world I've written into The Price of Silence is not a fictional world. It's our world, as I think it may become some time down the road.
I strongly believe that cybernetics are part of our future, though I wouldn't call myself a transhumanist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism). The Price of Silence is a novel about the blurring line between man and machine. It examines not only the drastic changes that realistic cybernetics will bring to the human race, but the dangers of integrating machines into the human brain. It's an exciting story revolving around a series of characters whose lives are drastically changed by the actions of a terrorist group known as Vanguard. It involves themes of freedom of the mind.
I really look forward to publishing this thing as soon as I can. I plan to finish the manuscript this year, so you all have something to look forward to.
