So Amazon has recently patented wristbands designed to keep track of and control workers and I was reminded of the infamous "nerve stapling" from the fantastic Alpha Centauri video game (released 1999). For those unfamiliar with it, Alpha Centauri was a Civilization franchise spinoff set in spaaaaace. In other words, Alpha Centauri is a strategy game where you take control of one of the many factions vying to colonize a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. The atmosphere, plot, political and strategy elements all congealed in an arguably flawless manner. Many features, like deformable terrain or sea cities, remain to this day never attempted by the main Civilization games. Even the spiritual successor Beyond Earth (2014) pales in comparison to the ambition and success of the original. Anyway, one approach to quell unruly workers (or "drones") in the game was to "nerve staple" them. Details of what exactly "nerve stapling" entailed were never clear beyond the obvious imagery, but the action was considered an "atrocity" by the game and would "discourage" riots for a full decade of in-game time.
Back to the real world. On top of tracking them, the Amazon wristbands can use vibrations to tell workers where to go or alert them to mistakes they've made. Now of course, I don't actually expect ultrasound vibrations to evolve into nerve stapling anytime soon (or at all) but the fact that I was reminded of it by real life is not very encouraging. The situation of workers in Amazon warehouses is already brutal enough without these wristbands.
