DARPA's New Brain Implant Could Treat Disease and Control Machines

a reply to: tetra50

The plan is written and the major parts are written in stone but it seems like the timing changes according to how the public accepts/rejects their advances.

I feel the endgame is already written but the timing is loose because there will be resistance.

Yeah, I'll pass this one, thank you very much. I think of the people who'll get it in the name of "progress"...

a reply to: HardCorps

Owell never saw this one coming

O well.
Plenty of other science fiction writers have.
Is the idea of a two edged sword new to you?

a reply to: HardCorps

Beyond Orwell indeed. F&S&

Great link from tetra50 too.

ummm no thanks!!
if our brains can control the machine what is gonna prevent the machine from controlling us??
Make you feels things you aren't really feeling;
Make you see things that aren't there
Do things you aren't doing
Heck throw you into a different reality all together, matter of fact throw you into one after the other till you have no idea what is real and what isn't.
no thanks!!
I've had nightmares about that kind of crap!

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
a reply to: tetra50



The plan is written and the major parts are written in stone but it seems like the timing changes according to how the public accepts/rejects their advances.



I feel the endgame is already written but the timing is loose because there will be resistance.

Maybe you shouldn't believe everything you read. This isn't the dark ages, There isn't witches and werewolfs and walking skeletons lurking in the woods. Stop jumping at every bump you hear.

a reply to: Observationalist

Really interesting to see IARPA mentioned as it is so rarely done.

Quite a cast of characters in this particular play, no?

There is so much going on under the covers here that I have to admire the sheer brilliance and audacity of this program's creator.

Watch this space.

I know I'm not going to make friends here by disagreeing with the obvious consensus, but is nature really so wonderful? I don't want to be a cyborg either, but nature isn't as good as some would believe. We already make up for things nature can't do. Nature can't heal a broken bone, so we have doctors, right? Nature didn't give us wings, but we made airplanes. Nature didn't give us the ability to travel through vacuum, so invented spaceships and spacesuits. Nature didn't give us an answer for multitudes of pathogens, so we created vaccines, methodologies and even cures. You get what I'm saying?

Nature is a f*(&^%^%ing mess too, not just us. We didn't invent mass carnage, it's always been here.

I believe this, alongside other explorations and measures, will improve us, but the road to a higher quality of life is bumpy and slow. It won't be what Kurzweil is hoping for. I think he said the singularity would happen in 2050, thereabout? So I guess by then humans will be demigods? Sorry, Kurzweil, your optimism precedes you. Unfortunately for you and us, we will pass away long before humans commonly reach the age of 150. Early deaths from diseases and infections, limited lifespans, wars, poverty, crime and other such things will continue to plague our existence for the foreseeable future. Unlike religious people, I do not believe this stems from "original sin" or a spiritual imperfection. It's just nature.

Does this mean I do not believe the descendants of humans will ever reach 1,000 or >10,000 years of life? No. I believe they will someday. However, I have no idea what form or mode of living they will have. The thing I believe is this won't happen soon, and when it happens, at first it'll be apportioned in limited amounts because of costs. It'll be used more widely only gradually, as it can be afforded.

Honestly I like Kurzweil's optimism. I just don't believe it.

And yet for all the things he says we'll achieve, I'd be unsurprised if a higher civilization somewhere out there has already achieved it. They watch us and ponder us just as we do the animals. I think the bible might be right when it says nothing under the sun is new,

hey johnnywhite:
I'm afraid I strongly disagree with you. Yeah, we did create most of what you describe. Look how many things that are known how to be fixed, years ahead, but not available to everyone right now. If they know how to fix something, they know how to create it, as well.

War, carnage, disease, believe it or not, have absolutely nothing to do with "nature." And nature may not be what you think it is, and far more controlled than you realize.

We don't have to live this way. That's been known for a very long time. Physics-wise, there are combinations of ultrasonic and ultraviolet machines that can eliminate all dirt and pathogens quite well. Imagine if we employed those technologies in regular homes the chemicals which would be eliminated to clean….for instance. But all those cleaning supplies exist and we do things this way, to prop up an economy, which almost everyone believes is necessary. There are other ways….

We've been controlled already for a very long time, one way or another. That's why time is looping like it is, and we go through the same thing repeatedly, slightly different. It's entirely controlled. If we are reading about this openly, I guarantee they've been using it. The controls people are being told about now, are just replacing older ways of doing the same, that got us to this place, to justify the need for more control, as is described in this thread.
Regards,
tetra50

Control might not necessarily come from influencing thoughts directly, it would be a pretty powerful position to be in to run a subscription based service where enhancements or fixes for mental disorders could be remotely switched off. Overt manipulation of thought processes could be exposed due to reverse engineering of the hardware and software involved, albeit it could be too late for many. The 'gifting' of products from private corporations could give rise to augmented reality advertising, trial upgrades (test our 50% boost in cognitive processing this month, $5 per day there-after - the prospect of going back to normal would be equivalent to handicapping yourself) or monitoring of social habits (either for commercial purposes or even crime prevention).

Life preservation and extended life would also come with associated costs. There would be those able to afford to live comfortably to 1000 years old and those who would have to work to pay for the subscriptions, if your behind in payments then you are effectively terminated or given work debt (have to perform undesirable tasks for a period of time - maybe always chasing the interest and never getting there). Class divisions enhanced further, but pay $20 for a 4 hour endorphine fix to lighten the tedium.

a reply to: HardCorps

The main character in Linklater's new film Boyhood had this to say about this:

"When they realized it was going to be too expensive to actually build cyborgs and robots – I mean, the costs of that were impossible – they decided to just let humans turn themselves into robots. That’s what’s going on right now.
There are billions of us just laying around not really doing anything. We don’t cost anything, and we’re even pretty good at self-maintenance and reproducing constantly. And, as it turns out, we’re already biologically programmed for our little cyborg upgrade. I read this thing the other day about how, like, when you hear that ding on your inbox you get a, like, a dopamine rush in your brain. It’s like we’re being chemically rewarded for allowing ourselves to be brainwashed. How evil is that? We’re #ed.

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