Tuesday, June 16, 2009

iPlant

Every time I think I've seen the worst technological advancement humanity has come up with, I'm always delivered with an unpleasant shock. As it is, we currently live in a drugged up society where people are constantly popping anti-depressants, mood elevators, and whatever other drug pharmaceutical companies come up with in order to make us "happy". Many of us, feel that such measures are unnecessary, and would dearly love to see greater control over the prescription of such drugs. However as society becomes more and more determined that we should be always happy, and never ever ever upset, our calls are becoming more and more ignored.

I've never made much of a stand against anti-depressants, other then knowing in my mind that I don't approve of them being used unless absolutely necessary, this is in part of my belief that people are supposed to feel depressed at times, and partly due to my limited interaction with people on such drugs always being negative. One person I know who was on "anti-depressants" as a preventative against post natal depression, and become determined that the computer was telling her to kill herself, she wasted no time in stopping all use of the drug, and is still very much alive today, and it's worth mentioning I think, never developed post natal depression either. I'm not about to start advocating against the use of anti-depressants however, for the simple fact, that it has come to my attention that they might very well end up being the lesser of two evils.

iPlant, a brain implant that could be used to regulate emotions is currently being developed. As far as I can it is not available for use in humans yet, and is only being tested on rats, but, Jesus fucking Christ, you have to be kidding. Who, what dim witted cretin, thinks that implanting something into your brain your brain that regulates your emotions is a good idea?! Now, I can see the arguments for something like iPlant, it would be splendid for depression, but I can also see the arguments for blowing up the planet. Furthermore, one part of the benefit of iPlant, is that it can be used to reward you for certain behaviour. That is to say, if I planted on your brain, I could set it so that when you bow down to me, you enjoy it, whenever you don't do what I tell you, you feel unhappy. No plans have been made to use this on humans yet, as it's only being tested on the rat subjects, but seriously, do we want something that is capable of doing this existing?

I know that we would have the choice to not put this thing in our heads, and that some can argue that if used responsibly would have no, or little, negative side effects, but tell me, if this thing is to be developed, what on earth is going to stop a government like China from inserting it into every citizens head?

I have two main arguments against the Iplant, one is that, as modern society advances, and technology advances with us, Governments around the world are finding more and more ways to watch us, through the use of video cameras and the like. How far, are we willing to let technology advance in their favour? Do we really want to risk a government being able to control every aspect of our lives, right down to our emotions?

Secondly, humans are supposed to get upset, we're supposed to feel down. It's our emotions that make us what we are, and who we are. The way we feel shouldn't be tampered with in such an invasive manner. We have a smorgasbord of emotions, and as a society we need to learn to start accepting all of them, not just the "good" ones.

This is really poorly written, not well thought out, and is nothing more than an impassioned rant, never mind. As we still have free will, I can't tell you to oppose iPlant, or if they're ever made available for public use to choose not to get one, but I for one, will be making sure that there is nothing in my mind except for my own thoughts.

Youtube Video
iPlant Website

3 comments:

  1. Hey, I'm one of the admins on the iPlant website.

    A few things.

    First, deep brain stimulation implants for psychiatric conditions have been used in human patients for more than a decade, see for instance: http://www.medtronic.com/ocd/

    Second, I agree that authoritarian regimes could do a lot of harm with this technology, that's partly why we created the site - to make sure that people understand the technology before it is developed so that each individual can make informed decisions and so that human rights groups can debate how to proceed and demand public oversight over the research. More here: http://www.iplant.eu/ethics.html

    Thanks
    /Chris

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, well, I don't exactly agree with the use of deep brain stimulation implants either.

    I don't really see how your going to stop authoritarian governments from using iPlant to their advantage once it's already developed. It's a bit like inventing atomic bombs, and then trying to stop North Korea using them isn't it.

    Also, I still disagree with the idea of implanting something into ones brain, especially someone who is healthy and normal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete