Your Brain May Soon Be Used Against You

The Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | Tue, Oct. 29, 2002 | Faye Flam

[BenLurkin]

"Oh, brave new world. . ."

[Fzob]

Forget trying to read minds. I want them to verifiy the well know but anecdotal mapping of the female brain. To be "series" for a second this technology is a bit scary in its implications

[AdA$tra]

Maybe it is time to disapear into the mountain wilderness for a decade or so.

[fooman]

This is what I have been talking about -Forensic MRI.

We have have the tech now and it is a travesty that we are not using it on Malvo and the Alquada prisoners.

[exhaustedmomma]

Seems like I saw this in the movie, SCANNERS... and in some forgot the name of it 60's Woody Allen movie.

[onedoug]

[lizma]

LOL!

My "I told you so gland" is much larger than that.

I suspect Klintoon's anterior cingulate region is massive.

Science marches on. Brain exploration is one of our new frontiers.

[doc30]

"In the long term, I think we will have technologies powerful enough to understand what people are thinking in ways unimaginable now," Langleben said. "I think in 50 years we will have a way to essentially read minds."

If science learns how to read the brain, it will then learn how to program it. In other words, when the government wants your opinion, it will give it to you and you will believe it as passionately as if it were your own. Very scary. Running to store for foil.....

[Ajnin]

Humans will adapt and overcome. People will find ways to be deceptive even with this technology.

[dfwgator]

"Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip." - Homer Simpson

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

[MissAmericanPie]

U r n trubs.=o.

[Stultis]

The Truth Machine -- by James L. Halperin; Mass Market Paperback

[Dan Day]

If science learns how to read the brain, it will then learn how to program it. In other words, when the government wants your opinion, it will give it to you and you will believe it as passionately as if it were your own. Very scary. Running to store for foil.....

If you enjoy science fiction, check used bookstores for a paperback from a few years ago named "Helm", by Steven Gould. Short review here

In fact, all of Gould's novels are first rate, breathing fresh life into some old plot devices.

But back to "Helm", it takes place at a time when "brain programmers" as you describve have been perfected. Manufactured with the intent of instilling years of schooling or specialized knowledge into people in minutes (much like the "training machine" in the movie "The Matrix"), the story's prologue consists of an emergency planning meeting to launch a hasty colonizing ship to another solar system, because a devastating world war has just threatened to render the entire Earth uninhabitable.

The cause of the war? Muslims had used the Helm technology to forcibly "convert" millions of infidels into rabid Islamic jihadists, and were using the fanatical army to try to forcibly convert everyone else in the world likewise. To try to counter the threat, someone dropped an anti-matter storage bottle (a high-tech energy storage technology) onto Iran, blasting a thousand-mile hole in the Earth's crust...

And that's just the background of the opening chapter.

Actually, most such issues are left behind as the novel moves into its main plot (which takes place hundreds of years later on the resulting colony), but it gives a taste of the dangers of such a technology.

[techcor]

Damn! People always said I had the kind of brain that would turn on me. * Sniff*. And after all the alchol that I've fed it.

[Alas Babylon!]

The United States Constitution, Bill of Rights:

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

I wonder if the Constitution still will have any bearing to folks and modern society in this country? I hope "Law & Order" type do try to remember the Constitution as they wage war against criminals.

[TigersEye]

See post #3, sweetheart. You may use your whole brain but I now have a map of it. ; )

By the way, post #12 is only a joke. 8^)

[.30Carbine]

In other words, when the government
Democratic Party
wants your opinion, it will give it to you
and you will believe it as passionately as if it were your own.
(Wellstone's memorial for example)

VOTE REPUBLICAN AND HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH!
(You won't have to duck any 'functional MRI'.)