Sunday, July 12, 2009

Brain Hacking Possibly in Need of Reboot

I'm not even going to ask why CNN is running this, because CNN seems to think HUDs are new and innovative. I will ask, why Wired is treating as a news story, not a particular instance of neuro-hacking, but the concept itself. How many days past the development of NLP or the consumption of alcohol are we? And, as for hacking of the non-self variety... how long has Mickey Finn been in operation?

Names flicker past my eyes like I'm wearing a personal HUD, a hypnagogic crawl: Phil Hine * Colleen Stan * Robert Lifton * Allen Dulles * Richard Helms * Louis Jolyon West * Al Crowley * William Burroughs * George Bush * George Bush * George Wallace * Georgia * Gia Carangi... to the point my brain was full of policemen and Angelina Jolie movies.

"[A]s neural devices become more complicated, and go wireless, some scientists say the risks of 'brain hacking' should be taken seriously," seems to imply that the old-fashioned methods of drug, advertising, and reinforcement aren't to "be taken seriously." To reward myself, I think I'll go buy a Starbucks coffee, praise my nation as being the greatest, and eat the same burger as everyone else and always listen to people in authority and the right uniform. A few billion religious folks breathe a sigh of relief, and a slightly smaller number wonder where all their guilt and grief comes from, then.

We may have heard Scientology breathe a collective sigh of relief, but then again, maybe that's just what the anti-Scientology people want us to believe we heard.

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