Are we becoming the Borg?

Those of you Trekkies out there will surely recognize the Borg. First appearing in Star Trek the Next Generation, the Borg are an alien group, composed of cybernetic organisms that antagonize Captain Picard and his crew. The Borg possess a hive mentality, where all decisions are made through "The Collective". The concept of individuality is non-existent. And they forcibly integrate other civilizations into their collective through a process they call assimilation. Something you could expect from a technocratic dystopian society.

Analogies between the Borg and our current reality might seem a bit extreme, but we may be heading down a similar path. On a physical (biological) aspect, we are becoming more integrated with machines. All sorts of implants are currently being used in medicine and the list keeps growing. Various startups are now working on different types of chip implants, advanced robot like prosthetics and neuronal interfaces to connect the human brain to machine components.

On a social and psychological level, we are seeing a trend towards that hive collective mentality. For example, our freedom of expression is constantly under attack, the pretext being conforming to a sort of political correctness or group acceptance of expression. State surveillance is ever increasing and privacy is all but gone. Public opinion is being forcefully herded into a homogeneous ideology which allows no room for dissenting opinion.

I'm not really concerned about the physical changes or the human/machine integration. This is almost expected, given the history and evolution of technology and humanity. What I am concerned about though, is the elimination of individual thought and freedoms. This is the very essence of what makes us human beings. To even contemplate the possibility of being locked in a conscious state without free will... yikes. Not a happy thought (And BTW, I know some may argue that free will is an illusion, but that's a totally different discussion)

So anyhow, with this said, are we becoming The Borg? Not sure yet. We'll have to wait and see. But if these trends continue, as the Borg would say, "resistance is futile".