Some of us were talking yesterday about things that might be possible after everybody is wearing mixed reality glasses. The conversation touched on how we divide people into two categories: (1) People who are our friends and family, or are otherwise in our “tribe”, and (2) Everyone else.
We intuitively recognize the inherent humanity of people in the first category. We empathize with them, and generally have a great capacity to be nurturing and supportive toward them.
People in the second category, like the people we might encounter on the subway, tend to become a sort of blur. Intellectually we know that they have as much individuality and humanity as the people we know, but that fact does not always register with us on an emotional level.
Somebody in our conversational group suggested that we use our future wearables to map the faces of our friends and family onto the faces of the people we see on the street and in the subway. Whichever person we know who most resembles a particular stranger, that is the face we would see when we look at that stranger.
If we did that, maybe we would all be kinder to the people around us. In a few years it should be possible to try, and the we’ll know whether it works.