SF Writers Propose Altering Brains to Accept Orders

[Mickey_Rat15]

So the population will not accept the technocrat's orders to save the world. The answer to some SF writers is to literally change how people think. Not by persuasion, but by mucking about with everyone's brains.

https://www.tor.com/2021/11/23/sci-fi-v ... /#comments

"...The root problem of all these things is Human Nature; so ultimately, that’s what has to change. We have to immunize ourselves against trolley paradoxes and kin selection, we have to eliminate hyperbolic discounting from the human mindset. We have to weed out all these destructive circuits at the neurochemical level.”

That is a great challenge from both the scientific and social standpoint. Watts’ work often revolves around changing Human Nature (e.g. in Blindsight, the Sunflowers cycle stories, “Incorruptible” or “Repeating The Past”), partly or as the main story theme, and he finds inspiration for his fiction in cutting-edge research: “For example, victims of Parkinson’s tend to be less religious than the rest of the population: if you could isolate that one impact, there’s a chance we could weed religious belief out of the human mindset, which would make us a lot less pernicious right out of the gate. Certain types of brain lesions make people a lot more effective at utilitarian choices, make us less moral and more ethical. Amping up the brain’s production of nociceptin could counteract some of the more pernicious, addictive, reward-seeking effects of dopamine—make us less greedy, in other words. So there are hints of a long-term solution. But as far as I know, there isn’t even the whiff of an actual research program on the horizon, and that’s no surprise. Try to get funding for a project whose stated goal is to save Humanity by making it less Human.”

I think I know where James Kirk would tell these goons to stuff it.

[clearspira]

I've been predicting something similar for years. But it won't be overt - this sort of thing never is.

It'll start with a brain implant that allows you to stream the internet into your head. Brain-tech interfaces are literally being built and tested right now so don't think this is some far future thing.
And it'll be the must have cool gadget to own. All of your gadgets, your games, your toys; it'll run the lot. Probably a lot of cool other features too. How about the ability to remember everything? To think faster?

You have to normalise it. That's the key.

Then after a few years of mass testing on the public they'll have all the data they need to move onto phase 2: the insidious soft sell.

''But what sort of man wouldn't want to forever remove the ability to raise a hand to his wife? But what sort of man would willingly want to eat meat? Its so cruel!'' etc.

I'm not saying this WILL happen. I'm saying that brain implants WILL happen. And if there is, say for example, another pandemic that requires everyone to be vaccinated and there is this magic switch in everyone's heads just sitting there... well... if you had described some of the totalitarian shit featured in 2020/2021 to me back in 2019 I wouldn't have believed you.

[Riedquat]

Along the same lines - "we must not let those selfish self-centred people who don't care about others get in the way with their nonsense about 'freedom'". Probably some self-rationalising that anyone who disagrees is scum anyway and therefore shouldn't have a say, if they make an even half decent argument against it they don't really mean that and it's just an attempt to justify their selfishness and prejudices.

Mind you I don't worry about it actually happening, very firmly still in science fiction territory. But anyone who thinks it sounds desirable is after a charming combination of zealotry and eugenics, a seriously messed-up individual. Still, better to let them be that than to force them otherwise. At least B5's "death of personality" was only used on criminals, and that was of seriously questionable ethics even then.

[TGLS]

I guess it's a real great thing that SF writers have the power they have influencing public policy.

--

Seriously, this is hardly a new idea. There was the same kind of paternalism with Coherent Extrapolated Volition in the AI futurist community about a decade ago.

[Mickey_Rat15]

I guess it's a real great thing that SF writers have the power they have influencing public policy.

--

Seriously, this is hardly a new idea. There was the same kind of paternalism with Coherent Extrapolated Volition in the AI futurist community about a decade ago.

The author of the article was lamenting that the SF writers quoted do not have that kind of influence over policy.

I just found it fascinating and disturbing that anyone would express those ideas and find them praiseworthy.

[Draco Dracul]

If you were going to alter people's brains, witch you shouldn't, your goal should be to increase empathy.

[clearspira]

If you were going to alter people's brains, witch you shouldn't, your goal should be to increase empathy.

The Catch 22 is that the people who would actually benefit most from more empathy such as the Taliban wouldn't submit to it in the first place.

[TGLS]

If you were going to alter people's brains, witch you shouldn't, your goal should be to increase empathy.

The Catch 22 is that the people who would actually benefit most from more empathy such as the Taliban wouldn't submit to it in the first place.

I dunno lots of people in high security prison would probably benefit from it and may very well would in exchange for a reduced sentence.

[CharlesPhipps]

Yes, because mind-controlling the populace will be done for its best interest and not to create an eternal slave race.

Or to paraphrase a conversation with a fellow progressive.

Friend: I hate that people automatically hate the government and don't trust them.

Me: That's because the government is trying to kill them.

Friend: But only half of it!

[McAvoy]

Yes, because mind-controlling the populace will be done for its best interest and not to create an eternal slave race.

Or to paraphrase a conversation with a fellow progressive.

Friend: I hate that people automatically hate the government and don't trust them.

Me: That's because the government is trying to kill them.

Friend: But only half of it!

Well that also creates another issue. Assuming this actually happens, it's not like it will be one party doing it. It will be multiple parties trying to do it.

Also there will always be a segment of the population, perhaps bigger thsn we would think that would not take those brain implants due to their tinfoil hat theories.