The authors studied the outer reaches of the field of “human performance modification”—including brain-computer interfaces, neuro-pharmaceuticals, and “brain plasticity”—in search of advances that may have military applications.... the authors note that research on remote-controlling future soldiers, or stoking their aggression by implanting electrodes in their brains, looks promising in rats.
Imagine boosting the aggressiveness of U.S. soldiers and Marines by implanting electrodes in their brains! These warriors would never "win the hearts and minds" of the country they are invading/occupying. I also can't imagine any soldier or Marine would emerge from that experience emotionally healthy. I forsee great demand for psychologists and mental health counselors if this technology is ever developed and used. Hopefully we won't go there.
The original study can be found here. (I haven't read the original.)
8 comments:
Is true. When I was at the VA hospital maybe a third of the patients there had PTSD or some form of psychiatric disability, probably more. And these guys were F'ing young. Like in their twenties, and their relationships, jobs, family life, everything was getting wrecked because the littlest and randomest thing would freak them out. It wasn't a stretch to see that plenty of them could end up on the streets if they're not taken care of.
I think this kind of thing would be beyond the help of psychiatry though. If you start messing around with peoples brains to make them more aggressive I think that psychotherapy would end with a bloody, empathetic stain on the floor and one angry soldier.
Odori, this story is like the basis one third of all science fiction. If we want to see the future, we need to have shit like this happen. The same goes for Fugu's cats with thumbs. You gotta have the horrible experiments gone wrong for the future to happen! Or so science fiction has told me.
Why the hell would you label cats with thumbs "wrong"?!?
Speciesist.
I think the whole concept is flawed--the very idea that being more aggressive would make you a deadlier soldier rings false to me. Granted, my only experience with killing a lot of people comes from a load of video gamery, but my finest moments of mass murder come when I am calm and detached; at peace, and able to see the field as a whole. Aggression leads to a lot of wasted movement. It's not like anyone's fighting with clubs anymore.
Obviously you need to play more Team Fortress II. Clubs/bats/broken glass bottles/hack saws kick ass.
Excellent points all... I can't help but wonder about the people who think up these research topics. I'd like to write a personal profile on one of them.
I think there is some serious investigative reporting needing to be done!
not it
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