7 ms·

Can we have nice things? A technology to alter brain function to actually make peoples lives better and not be abused to make them also complacent, obedient, wo

Can we have nice things? A technology to alter brain function to actually make peoples lives better and not be abused to make them also complacent, obedient, work twice with half the pay without complaining and buy the highest bidding brand.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
Eh, sorry. We probably could have, but you just gave me all these great ideas. Then again, if I’ve learned anything from the past decade, forget all that working harder stuff, I’ll just figure put how to sell advertising straight into your brain implant, don’t mind me while I take some of the most talented programmers in the world to do this.
bobmaxup 5y ago
I don't think deep brain stimulation is that sophisticated, so you probably don't need to worry about it right now.
- blix 5y ago
  I don't think this future is really all that sophisticated.
- reedjosh 5y ago
  > you probably don't need to worry about Yeah, you aint't even gotta think about it bro.
pram 5y ago
Microdosing taser shots to your brain, just hustle and grind things
- asdff 5y ago
  can't wait to be able to mount a docker image in my brain
bArray 5y ago
> [..] abused to make them also complacent, obedient, work twice with half the pay without complaining and buy the highest bidding brand. Not to worry, the new brain implant provides immediate relief from negative feelings about the brain implant! You'll be hysterically cackling in no time on your way to work at your third minimum wage job in the mines, with a protein snack made of an assortment of bugs. In all seriousness, this is highly concerning, especially in conjunction with the powers that have been given so easily during the COVID pandemic. Imagine in 10 years time it is declared that there is a 'depression pandemic', and for the better health of yourself and those around you, you must get your anti-depression implant in order to return back to work, and without your implant passport you will not be allowed into bars, restaurants, etc. Those that have already had the implant call you 'anti-Science' and publicly ridicule you as a second-class citizen. The President at the time publicly declares "our patience is running thin", as pressure ramps up to combat yet another infectious wave of depression. The government promises "the implant will only be used to track and trace contact with those suspected of having depression", but soon the police realise that such technology could also be used in "exceptional" criminal cases, where your state of mind around the place of the crime can be submitted as evidence to your involvement. Once there is some acceptance and legal standing, the use becomes more and more common place. Eventually some smart people realize that there is some pattern of behaviour for people who are about to commit a crime, and so pre-crime arrests and thought-crimes arise. The future has never looked so safe!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Taywee 5y ago
  In the city I live, people couldn't even be convinced to wear a cloth mask for basically any reason, and people picketed an elementary school because the district implemented a mask recommendation. I can imagine your scenario, it's an interesting enough thought for some dystopian fiction, but I don't think the clear one-to-one analogy between an infectious disease and crippling depression work in any way at all. In the COVID case, it's an infectious disease with some possible long-term damage, high rate of infection, relatively moderate risk of death, and a scramble to try to contain or slow the spread. I don't see how any of that can be compared to depression, a non-contagious disorder that very often destroys all quality of life in the sufferers. Honestly, I don't see any gain in this incredible pessimism. A brain implant seems to have some potential to allow some people to have hope in successfully living a life that isn't controlled by a cloud of grey, and the first worry is in a dystopian government using it to brain control the public, because there is a pattern of behavior in how governments desperately tried to control a pandemic in the past?
john_moscow 5y ago
We can't. Depression is your brain's reaction to not being able to pick and maintain long-term goals for prolonged time. And the increased number of depressed people in the past decades is an indication that something about our society is going wrong. Dealing with it without resolving the underlying cause is effectively turning people into obedient work force that has accepted its fate.
- diordiderot 5y ago
  So the sadness that accompanied working a min wage job full time evenings and weekends through 6 years of university was my inability to pick and maintain my goals, not economic stress and lack of sleep. I feel so daft.
  - john_moscow 5y ago
    It was a clear signal from your subconsciousness that you were putting time and effort in something that didn't bring long-term value. If we lived in a pre-corporate era, you could have considered a trade, or helping run a small business, building rapport with the owner, or something else that would have had more meaning. Such things build up character, you sort of gain velocity and habits that help you propel yourself further later in life. Except we destroyed that with low interest rates and turning a blind eye for anticompetitive behavior. Now most people are replaceable cogs that ran out of goals that would motivate them. That's the real, and very big problem. I hope the degree was worth it, because otherwise you have wasted 6 years of your life. Paying for some administrators' trips to Hawaii with your student debt. And that depression feeling was a very clear early warning that could have helped you prevent that.
  - scaramanga 5y ago
    Pretty sure that the former is just academic jargon for the latter.
  - krageon 5y ago
    Are you sarcastic or do you genuinely not see how those are the same?
omgwtfbyobbq 5y ago
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you view it, brains don't seem to work like that. The likelihood of DBS being able to turn someone into an ideal worker/consumer is about the same as it being able to turn a Parkinson's patient into an Olympic athlete.
- caycep 5y ago
  I would generally agree with this...the electrodes and microcontrollers we have tend to be relatively crude. BUT...I would say apathy as a broad symptom/syndrome is known to be associated w/ an untreated Parkinsonian state...so if some enterprising postdoc somehow finds a target nucleus that improves apathy w/ macro stimulating electrodes in the near future...we could all be wrong..
  - omgwtfbyobbq 5y ago
    That might be possible, but it's likely more of a person to person difference than something that can be reliably used. Even with people with PD, whether and how well DBS will work is variable, and even after it's put in, assuming it works for someone, programing is about finding a good balance between beneficial effects and unwanted side effects. Even if there is a target to improve apathy, it'll likely come at the expense of some other unwanted side effects.
    - caycep 5y ago
      The problem w/ PD-DBS is...the practice of implanting and programming the gizmos is much less standardized that it should be. Yes, there is some patient to patient variability...but you can kind of predict what will happen and how the patient will respond simply by mapping the anatomical location of the electrodes using Lead DBS or FSL or ANTS. The folks with well placed electrodes - the pro-movement/anti-tremor effect is remarkably consistent. The folks who either are implanted a few millimeters outside of the targeted nucleus, or roll in the door with some bizarre setting...not so much... That being said, I have heard for less measurable symptoms, i.e. OCD or depression...DBS implantation and programming is much more inexact, as you describe.
jokowueu 5y ago
I think you will like this https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/08/20/wireheading_done_right/ https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/08/20/wireheading_done_righ...
rzzzt 5y ago
Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries. At ease.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

Eh, sorry. We probably could have, but you just gave me all these great ideas. Then again, if I’ve learned anything from the past decade, forget all that working harder stuff, I’ll just figure put how to sell advertising straight into your brain implant, don’t mind me while I take some of the most talented programmers in the world to do this.

bobmaxup 5y ago

I don't think deep brain stimulation is that sophisticated, so you probably don't need to worry about it right now.

blix 5y ago
I don't think this future is really all that sophisticated.
reedjosh 5y ago
> you probably don't need to worry about Yeah, you aint't even gotta think about it bro.

pram 5y ago

Microdosing taser shots to your brain, just hustle and grind things

asdff 5y ago
can't wait to be able to mount a docker image in my brain

bArray 5y ago

> [..] abused to make them also complacent, obedient, work twice with half the pay without complaining and buy the highest bidding brand. Not to worry, the new brain implant provides immediate relief from negative feelings about the brain implant! You'll be hysterically cackling in no time on your way to work at your third minimum wage job in the mines, with a protein snack made of an assortment of bugs. In all seriousness, this is highly concerning, especially in conjunction with the powers that have been given so easily during the COVID pandemic. Imagine in 10 years time it is declared that there is a 'depression pandemic', and for the better health of yourself and those around you, you must get your anti-depression implant in order to return back to work, and without your implant passport you will not be allowed into bars, restaurants, etc. Those that have already had the implant call you 'anti-Science' and publicly ridicule you as a second-class citizen. The President at the time publicly declares "our patience is running thin", as pressure ramps up to combat yet another infectious wave of depression. The government promises "the implant will only be used to track and trace contact with those suspected of having depression", but soon the police realise that such technology could also be used in "exceptional" criminal cases, where your state of mind around the place of the crime can be submitted as evidence to your involvement. Once there is some acceptance and legal standing, the use becomes more and more common place. Eventually some smart people realize that there is some pattern of behaviour for people who are about to commit a crime, and so pre-crime arrests and thought-crimes arise. The future has never looked so safe!

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Taywee 5y ago
In the city I live, people couldn't even be convinced to wear a cloth mask for basically any reason, and people picketed an elementary school because the district implemented a mask recommendation. I can imagine your scenario, it's an interesting enough thought for some dystopian fiction, but I don't think the clear one-to-one analogy between an infectious disease and crippling depression work in any way at all. In the COVID case, it's an infectious disease with some possible long-term damage, high rate of infection, relatively moderate risk of death, and a scramble to try to contain or slow the spread. I don't see how any of that can be compared to depression, a non-contagious disorder that very often destroys all quality of life in the sufferers. Honestly, I don't see any gain in this incredible pessimism. A brain implant seems to have some potential to allow some people to have hope in successfully living a life that isn't controlled by a cloud of grey, and the first worry is in a dystopian government using it to brain control the public, because there is a pattern of behavior in how governments desperately tried to control a pandemic in the past?

john_moscow 5y ago

We can't. Depression is your brain's reaction to not being able to pick and maintain long-term goals for prolonged time. And the increased number of depressed people in the past decades is an indication that something about our society is going wrong. Dealing with it without resolving the underlying cause is effectively turning people into obedient work force that has accepted its fate.

diordiderot 5y ago
So the sadness that accompanied working a min wage job full time evenings and weekends through 6 years of university was my inability to pick and maintain my goals, not economic stress and lack of sleep. I feel so daft.
- john_moscow 5y ago
  It was a clear signal from your subconsciousness that you were putting time and effort in something that didn't bring long-term value. If we lived in a pre-corporate era, you could have considered a trade, or helping run a small business, building rapport with the owner, or something else that would have had more meaning. Such things build up character, you sort of gain velocity and habits that help you propel yourself further later in life. Except we destroyed that with low interest rates and turning a blind eye for anticompetitive behavior. Now most people are replaceable cogs that ran out of goals that would motivate them. That's the real, and very big problem. I hope the degree was worth it, because otherwise you have wasted 6 years of your life. Paying for some administrators' trips to Hawaii with your student debt. And that depression feeling was a very clear early warning that could have helped you prevent that.
- scaramanga 5y ago
  Pretty sure that the former is just academic jargon for the latter.
- krageon 5y ago
  Are you sarcastic or do you genuinely not see how those are the same?

omgwtfbyobbq 5y ago

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you view it, brains don't seem to work like that. The likelihood of DBS being able to turn someone into an ideal worker/consumer is about the same as it being able to turn a Parkinson's patient into an Olympic athlete.

caycep 5y ago
I would generally agree with this...the electrodes and microcontrollers we have tend to be relatively crude. BUT...I would say apathy as a broad symptom/syndrome is known to be associated w/ an untreated Parkinsonian state...so if some enterprising postdoc somehow finds a target nucleus that improves apathy w/ macro stimulating electrodes in the near future...we could all be wrong..
- omgwtfbyobbq 5y ago
  That might be possible, but it's likely more of a person to person difference than something that can be reliably used. Even with people with PD, whether and how well DBS will work is variable, and even after it's put in, assuming it works for someone, programing is about finding a good balance between beneficial effects and unwanted side effects. Even if there is a target to improve apathy, it'll likely come at the expense of some other unwanted side effects.
  - caycep 5y ago
    The problem w/ PD-DBS is...the practice of implanting and programming the gizmos is much less standardized that it should be. Yes, there is some patient to patient variability...but you can kind of predict what will happen and how the patient will respond simply by mapping the anatomical location of the electrodes using Lead DBS or FSL or ANTS. The folks with well placed electrodes - the pro-movement/anti-tremor effect is remarkably consistent. The folks who either are implanted a few millimeters outside of the targeted nucleus, or roll in the door with some bizarre setting...not so much... That being said, I have heard for less measurable symptoms, i.e. OCD or depression...DBS implantation and programming is much more inexact, as you describe.

jokowueu 5y ago

I think you will like this https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/08/20/wireheading_done_right/ https://qualiacomputing.com/2016/08/20/wireheading_done_righ...

rzzzt 5y ago

Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries. At ease.