This Time, Honey, You Really Are History

In the near future, the act of remembering will become a choice.

Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever

So next time you meet that formerly significant other who dumped you like surplus Chinese manufactured goods, you really will be able to look them in the eye and say with total honesty, 'I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met...'

I suppose there will be a few other uses for it too. What would you use it for?

I would bet it was initially developed by the CIA or military to wipe memory.

The CIA for its agents who saw to much.

The military for soldiers who did too much.

Just a guess.

Sounds like the beginning of a bad horror movie....or romantic comedy.


Seriously though, if true, this is frightening.

So ..... hypothetical future situation ...

A terrorist/psycho/madperson/etc enters a packed movie theater and proceeds to unload his/her arsenal into the packed movie theater audience killing many and wounding many more.
S/he then leaves the crime scene, takes one of these "forget" pills and promptly loses all memory of what just occurred.
Would this stand up in court as a legitimate defense that the perpetrator literally had no recollection of the crime ?

I personally, would buy a whole bottle of those pills! lol

Sounds like something they would inject into James Holmes once they had him in the solitary suicide watch cell.

Well...emotionally speaking and mentally speaking of the Hell my memories of my ex create,I would say "Shut up and take my money!!"

But realistically speaking--I wonder how they can target just those selective memories and what the consequences would be since there would be bound to be blank spots or places that can no longer connect since we are the sum of all our experiences,including memories,so that and then what others have already mentioned regarding them being used for "dark purposes" would make me dubious regarding their existence and use.S+F

After reading the article, I can't help but think how this reminds me of Total Recall. I read that it could help with OCD, but I wonder if it could also potentially benefit with comorbid effects such as Tourette's Disorder.

Nobody saw 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'?

Though this pill could be a boon if used in a clinical environment to treat, oh say, PTSD; I can't help but think it's mostly going to used in bars by the next generation of date rapists.



Uh, and absentee fathers.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind with jim carrey is a movie exactly about this

A couple hate eachother and both end up going to a clinic of some sort to forget eachother, and end up meeting again and it is a good movie , one of carreys serious movies.

Really though, if you forget things then you never learn from your mistakes do you?

Dumbest idea ever IMO. Just another drug that will be abused, so people can go on being blissfully unaware of the real world out there.

The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, come to mind! LoL

My experiences- good and bad - define me. I like to examine my stupid mistakes, my ignorant mistakes...and learn from them.

You think that society is an 'idiocracy' now? Just wait.

Originally posted by Astyanax

I suppose there will be a few other uses for it too. What would you use it for?

I wouldnt I remember how long it takes to remember power DATA so I wouldnt.. Imagine this being used to make you forget you were here BEFORE IF NOT ON MARS as you are reborn into soul material elsewhere if not here AGAIN. Mistakes help you learn so to forget them means you may repeat the same mistakes again.

It reminds me of this great Captain Kirk speech. "I don't want my pain taken away. I need my pain."

Originally posted by TKDRL
Dumbest idea ever IMO. Just another drug that will be abused, so people can go on being blissfully unaware of the real world out there.

A majority of the population is blissfully unaware in the first place. A drug will do nothing but help people stay that way.

This sounds like something out of MKULTRA...

Memories both good and bad shape your character. In fact, we learn more about ourselves from traumatic experiences.

I don't think erasing any kind of memory is a good idea.

Originally posted by Astyanax

In the near future, the act of remembering will become a choice.

Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories Forever

So next time you meet that formerly significant other who dumped you like surplus Chinese manufactured goods, you really will be able to look them in the eye and say with total honesty, 'I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met...'

I suppose there will be a few other uses for it too. What would you use it for?

So partner screws you up rotten. You take a pill to forget but it only erases the bad memories. You then spend the rest of your life stalking your ex because you have NO RECOLLECTION of what they did to you and can't understand why the want nothing to do with you. So you take a forget pill to erase the bad memory of them rejecting you and.......you can see that this leads to the looney bin!

As far as OP's scenario, I think you would keep making the same mistake over and over again. I've seen groundhog day....