My watch runs for years from a coin cell. There's no way that I'm replacing it with an internet connected spy device that constantly needs to be charged.
I chose to stop wearing a watch more than 20 years ago. I thought about getting one for the health benefits five years ago, but concluded that I don't want to have a watch nor cover an awesome tattoo. As a friend once wrote, "wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time."
Revelation 13:16-17
New International Version
16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
Huh. No uproar from the people who believe in this shit? Weird.
He reminds me of the 'precious bodily fluids' general from Dr Strangelove.
edit:
holy crap, I just rewatched the movie and RFK is EXACTLY that general. The general talks about toxins from fluoride in drinking water poisoning our precious bodily fluids. He even looks a bit like RFK. Its almost RFK is trying to act exactly like that general.
RFK jr’s wants, needs, desire to continue breathing move me not at all.
He can fuck off.
If we had a science-backing and non-Nazi government who I had any belief in their ability and will to keep our data safe, this might be really cool. When I first got an Apple Watch and saw all the ways it benefits me I honestly wished everyone had one by default.
Instead, something like this would simply be used to further control people especially women since it can track monthly cycles (to my knowledge at least.)
American evangelicals when the government suggests getting a vaccine for a deadly virus- "IT'S THE MARK OF THE BEAST DON'T GET IT OR YOU'LL GO TO HELL"
American evangelicals when people they voted for say you need to wear something on your wrist to participate in society - "This is fine"
A wearable computer is much more similar in form to what is described in the Book of Revelation than a vaccine is, but these dumbasses don't see that because they're not operating on logic but instead are just doing what they're told.
A key adviser to Kennedy, Calley Means, could directly benefit from one of the campaign’s stated aims: popularizing “technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your own health”.
Calley Means is a senior Kennedy adviser, and was hired as a special government employee to focus on food policy, according to Bloomberg. He founded a company that helps Americans get such wearable devices reimbursed tax-free through health savings accounts.
Casey Means is Calley’s sister. She also runs a healthcare start-up, although hers sells wearable devices such as continuous glucose monitors. She is Kennedy’s nominee for US surgeon general, and a healthcare entrepreneur whose business sells continuous glucose monitors – one such wearable device. Calley Means’s company also works with Casey’s company.
Due to Calley Means’s status as a special employee, he has not been forced to divest from his private business interests – a situation that has already resulted in an ethics complaint. Consumer advocates, such as the non-profit group Public Citizen, had warned such hiring practices could cause conflicts of interest. HHS did not respond to a request for comment about Calley Means’s private business interests, or his role in crafting the publicity campaign.
As long as the wearable contains open source software and preferably open source hardware, then sure, I'd be willing to do so. Because then I could know that I could control where the data went.
Thing is putting the horrific privacy concerns aside it’s not like it’s a bad idea from a health perspective. Everybody being simply more aware of the things their body is doing is immensely helpful on a societal scale.
Problem is there aren’t any devices that are local only or otherwise truly private. Apple stores your data locally on your phone which is good, but there’s no guarantee it’ll always be that way.
Pass a law that protects wearable health data under HIPAA and I’d consider it.
Mandating Americans use 'wearables' for health reasons thats coming from the same party that, when asked to wear a mask during a worldwide pandemic for the public health decried government overreach, claiming it was like living in nazi germany, and even discredited Fauci over his very true claims of wearing masks helping to save lives. I truly cant wait to see what that side has to say about Junior here, gotta keep that same energy right??
"Wearables" but they forget to mention it's about government mandated trackers in a closed ecosystem.
They will track which bad (health or otherwise) groups of people one has come in contact with and make deductions based on that.
Ofcourse it's also extra business for the ice teams.
And the deluxe wearable also tracks payments.
The European Covid tracking app back then already was very scary in its early setup ... and this mandated wearable idea will be far worse.
Years ago I purchased a Fossil Explorist Q wearable smartwatch. The first software update, about a month after I bought it, turned the device from a functional smartwatch into a brick that was so slow it was nearly nonfunctional.
The device was not powerful enough to run all the spyware they tried to pack into that update, turning it into an on wrist heater, occasionally getting Hot enough to burn me.
I've never seen a device so thoroughly destroyed by enshittification so quickly. That's experience turned me off of wearables forever. Maybe I'll make my own someday. Maybe I'll get a Pebble now that they're back-ish. I'll never get anything with wearOS on it again. Hell after the last year I might never get something with Android/iOS again either.
Follow the money. Nominee for surgeon general has a stake in wearable tech.
Just like when those scatter machines were forced on the TSA, it's because the person in charge had a stake in the company making them.
My company gave these things away to each employee for some 'fitness challenge' between departments....I never even opened the package. My group was mad at me for not helping win the free lunch or whatever it was .... Until I made them read the privacy policy. Many stopped wearing them immediately
to do what with? unless you're going to also increase grants to nih studies for wearable devices to study and improve something involving the health system, what is the benefit besides making apple richer?
Ok RFK. Let's see you and all of Trump's squad do it first, and make sure it's public in realtime. I'd love to see timestamps each and every time he reads AOC tweets.
You can’t pay me to wear anything on my wrist even without the government spying. And no way in hell would I trust anything this administration recommends.
Why would every American buy one if they can't afford insurance + medical bills to pay for health care? "Oh look, I'm having a heart attack. Good to know. Guess I'll just keep working."