http://io9.com/5987567/brain+to+brain-interfaces-have-arrived-and-they-are-absolutely-mindblowing anyone ever read any alistair reynolds? seems a lot like the beginnings of the conjoiner technology from galactic north. especially this line: "We cannot predict what kinds of emergent properties would appear when animals begin interacting as part of a brain-net," he continues. "In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves." anyhoo, the possibilities of this are staggering
bees and other insects have been doing that for a while now. i've read mack reynolds five way secret agent when it was serialized in analog back in the early 70s. probably not the same guy, but that's only a guess. matrix got jack on promethius road.
Society may indeed collapse if we could read each others minds unedited to see what everyone else is really thinking. Still, combining unused brain computer power of 7 billion people would make huge supercomputer
the pritcher mass. i forget who wrote it. i think gordy was one of the co-authors, sometime back in the 70s.
