It’s a non intrusive implant that uses your bodies kinetic energy to power your phone or other various small devices.
The thing is, in order for this thing to work, you have to consume at least 6,000 calories a day. Once installed, consuming anything less than that, you run the risk of being malnourished. Sure, you can skip a day or two with no ill effects, but anything longer than that could cause problems.
Side effects you wont have to worry about would be: Cholesterol, blood sugar levels, or any other diseases normally associated with high food consumption.
Voted “Not Sure/Other”. First off, if it’s a “Black Mirror” type implant, then I know it’s going to go horribly wrong somehow. Second, I have questions about the mechanics of the implant.
Does the implant simply burn calories for energy? So I could eat normally for the first 2500-ish calories per day, then load up with sugar for the rest? That still doesn’t sound very appealing, but it’s more appealing than needing to maintain 6000 calories of properly nutritious intake per day. If it’s the former, my teeth would take a serious beating. If it’s the latter, I suspect I’d be malnourished no matter what I did. Kind of a lousy design if the implant can’t simply go into sleep mode if the user isn’t supplying enough calories.
Does the implant use wireless in any way, shape, or form? Is it on the Internet of Things? If so, my answer changes to a firm “No”. No way am I using an implant that can be hacked. I don’t even want a car that’s wirelessly accessible, much less an implant.
I was thinking about doing the math for 6000 calories vs. average phone use and determining if it’s a good deal, energy-wise. Ditto asking about bugs in the implant. But that felt like fighting the hypothetical.
I will say that 6000 calories to charge a phone sounds like a terrible trade. IIRC, charging my phone takes less than 1% of my monthly energy usage. I suspect that tripling people’s food intake would result in far more than a 1% increase in energy needs to create food. Now, if the implant could heat and cool my body, removing the need for HVAC, then that’s another story. But that could go wrong even more horribly than a phone charger.
Heh, yes, the idea is the device burns roughly 4500 calories a day. So you would need to consume at least that plus your own nutritional needs to stay healthy.
The attraction to this device is that you can consume LOTS of food with out having to worry about weight gain. The fact that it charges your phone is just gravy.
Eating lots sounds fun. It’s a terrible idea, however. The moment you don’t have access to a huge amount of food, you’re going to suffer horribly.
Eating that amount of food ain’t cheap, either. You now have to buy a lot more food and spend a lot of time preparing and eating food. It adds up. Honestly, it’s a lot easier to just plug my phone in.
Probably not. Have you ever had a low blood sugar incident? They can be terrifying.
It would be nice as a weight loss and weight maintenance tool but the idea of having to stuff yourself until you are sick everyday just to avoid developing hypoglycemia or fatigue isn’t going to be fun. It’ll be like the movie thinner.
If the extra calorie requirements are on 500-1500, then maybe yeah as long as I can take it out. But an extra 4500, I couldn’t eat that much.
Ok. Since you mentioned malnourishment, I wasn’t sure how the implant got its energy. If you miss the caloric goal, I assume it starts going after fat? If there’s no fat reserves, does it go after protein or other nutrients?
I can see the attraction of not needing to worry about one’s calorie consumption, but there’s more to healthy eating than simply getting enough calories. Plenty of people have health issues because of too much fat and sugar, and not enough other nutrients. Also, 6000 calories a day is a lot. Most people would probably have difficulty consuming that many calories each and every day. If the implant could be tuned to simply burn off excess calories, that would be another story.
Changing my answer to “No.” Benefits too low, risks and costs too high. I enjoy eating, I’d rather not turn it into a life-or-death struggle if I can avoid it.
Adding 4500 calories a day would increase your food budget by several thousand dollars a year. A lot more than that if you live on Whoppers and delivered pizza. I think anybody can charge their phone a lot cheaper that.
It would make more sense to switch the flow of energy, so undernourished people in the third world can live on the power grid.
People are already becoming slaves to their technology. This implant would require people to spend a great deal more time and money, just to power their devices. I’d feel like a rat on a treadmill, just to keep my iPhone powered.
And unclear about the side effects: If I’m already diabetic and overweight, how would this affect me? Can I consume less than 6,000 calories, improve my blood sugar and lose weight?
Cost would not necessarily be a big issue. Lard contains about 250 calories and costs about $.11 per ounce. Eating 18 ounces of lard per day will get the calories you need and cost about $2, which translates to an additional $730 per year. That’s the highest calorie per cost “food” I could think of, there may be even lower examples.
That said, I would not participate. I don’t see the current methods of phone charging as a big enough inconvenience to make an implant appealing.
I went no but I could have done other as well. I just don’t use any small devices that I want to power. The last time my cell phone was turned on was around New Years and its just a plain old flip. So the use I would get out of something like this is about nil.
Also, and I hate to be fighting the hypothetical, but it seems like the inclusion of one magnetic reed switch would make this a device I can use when I want to go to the all-you-can-eat buffet, and switch off when I want.
I am tempted by the promise of being able to eat everything (!), and lose weight, but it does sound expensive and risky, which are two things I don’t like in my life.
I’d be quite happy with a more passive technology, like self-winding watches, which simply capitalize on the normal “wasted motion” of our bodies in everyday life.
But something that vampirically sucks energy from my body? Good god, no!
ETA: I don’t mind wearing a weighted belt or bracelets to enhance exercise…but all the time? Jeeze!
ETA: If the thing came with an off switch, I might reconsider.
Sounds inconvenient and like you would be spending a fortune on food to save a few dollars worth of batteries.
You could get the same things by carrying a tiny, cigarette lighter sized, generator with a crank and an adapter to recharge your phone.
The health benefits sound like it may be worth while if they have serious problems with that sort of thing but it would be just like it that it doesn’t work for anyone with high cholesterol or diabetes.