“People hate each other even though they may not even know each other,” they said. “Our society is tearing itself apart.”
They challenged themselves to come up with a new way to make people more empathetic.
Working with experts in various fields, they created and patented a headset that enabled the user to “see” the feelings, thoughts and experiences of others without revealing the identities of those individuals. They called it “The Inner Eye” — TIE, for short.
Wearing the device, users could instantly understand the hopes and fears of others around the world. They knew their joys and sorrows, their achievements and failings, the things that had helped them and the things that had hurt them in their lives. They could “see” why people were the way they were.
As a result, users felt a bond with countless others because they now realized how much they had in common. They no longer saw themselves as separate.
TIE became wildly popular, but the inventors weren’t out to make money, so they gave away their patent rights.
“This innovation belongs to humanity,” they said.
As billions used TIE, society changed. People began listening to one another. They began respecting one another. And for the first time since before man formed tribes, human beings were at peace.