"Minority Report" Becomes Reality
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/...009229,00.html
This story in the Guardian discusses a new brain scan that has been developed that supposedly will be able to tell a person's intention of carrying out an action. With all the technological advances one hears about, it's difficult to be shocked anymore. But this one really astounded me. The article mentions the possibility of demonstrating one's thoughts before the individual is conscious of them. Scary shit.
This story in the Guardian discusses a new brain scan that has been developed that supposedly will be able to tell a person's intention of carrying out an action. With all the technological advances one hears about, it's difficult to be shocked anymore. But this one really astounded me. The article mentions the possibility of demonstrating one's thoughts before the individual is conscious of them. Scary shit.
Comments
Yeah, this is the latest in a long-term ongoing trend that is very frightening.
There's only one thing we can do now: give even more unwavering support to the right-wing, don't question anything at all, become even more Conservative and move heaven and earth to defend corporate America.
Oh and give up any of the pitifully few rights we have left...maybe, just maybe, if we give up enough it will halt these worrying developments.
There was a reason I posted this in AO as opposed to PO.
If we could develop the technology to predict when people will commit certain intentional torts, and we have enough time to warn both the future victim and the future criminal of the act, then everyone benefits. It's nowhere near that stage yet, however. Individual brain scans are invasive, inaccurate (70%?), costly, time consuming, etc. Definite civil liberties issues with the technology in its current state.
IBesides, I think that one could make the argument that this is a libertarian/human rights issue and that the organizations working in this field are necessarily left-leaning.
It could!
We'd save lives, lower crime, reduce the prison population, get people help when they need it before hurting someone. The technology holds promise if we could ever refine it enough to satisfy civil liberties issues about invasiveness (the unreasonable search/seizure issue that would result from subjecting people to individual brain scans. I'd think the technology would need to develop to the point of noninvasive city-wide scans and used only narrowly for preventing certain intentional torts.)
Yes...but at that point - and I think we are nearly there - there is no longer a 'left' or 'right'. There is just a monolithic State and those who in whatever way fail to embrace it.
I would be in that category and of course the technology that the State possesses would be brought to bear on anyone who opposes the State or its methods. That's why I think it is something I am not too enthusiastic about.
They say that 'if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about' and they are right.
The point is that at the point where 'left' and 'right' meld into one then a lot of people would have a lot to hide. A lot of people on these boards even.
There are left-wing arguments for using the technology as I've described, and there are right-wing arguments for using the technology as you've described.
I don't see the conflation you're talking about.
Nick
The titling of the thread and the article is good journalism, but it seems to be a misrepresentation of what's actually at work here.
You will.
For now look at it like this:
This tech - in fact any tech of this nature - is in the sole possession of the State. It will not be on sale to the general public where, say, any old Muslim or Malcontent could get their paws on it.
It belongs to the State and will be in the remit of large corporations.
The State is no longer predicated on a left/right split. Those concepts are dead in the US and UK (which are the areas we are talking about as prime movers - other States are either 'customers' for this tech or 'enemies' that it will be used on).
It is fairly obvious there is no political right or left in the ~UK or US. The Dems are practically identical to the Repubs and in the UK Tony Blair is possibly the most right-wing Premier the country has ever had.
Right or Left no longer exist. There is merely the State. And wherever you stand in relation to it.
Wow. Just, wow.
This is an MRI scanner and they are using functional MRI, fMRI. fMRI can be done by any center with a good quality MR scanner. These scans take a very long time because they require baseline scans.
This study was to determine if they could tell if someone was going to add or subtract two numbers. They had to train the system to each individual before they were able to predict. Even then the accuracy of the system was closer to guess work (50/50) than 100% accuracy.
Maybe someday when we have implantable 2T MR scanners the government will be able to read our thoughts in real time. Or maybe someday when a MRI scanner can download our thoughts we'll have to start to worry.
That day is long off so we can all cool the hysteria.
Err...no.....we still have a government that WANTS to do these things.
They may be behind the tech for the time being but in terms of the rush to totalitarian quasi-fascist control they are well ahead of the curve.
Admittedly most sheep are so complacent they have nothing to worry about and any brains scans will reveal nothing at all but it's not them that need to have cause for concern.......
Whatever
Tony Blair is possibly the most right-wing Premier the country has ever had.
I don't know about Blair, but I do know what that statement says about your politics.
Right or Left no longer exist. There is merely the State. And wherever you stand in relation to it.
That's pretty extreme. While I believe the government does expand its powers (and has gone too far already), I think you're really going off the deep end by putting it like that.
What does it say?
Well, the left has no real presence in the UK or Spain which are the Western areas I am most familiar with. It may be different in the US but it seems to me that even the most 'extreme left' position in the US is centre-right in Europe.
Tony Blair essentially carried on the reforms of Margaret Thatcher. There are hundreds of right-wing policies he has carried out that even she would balk at:
Privatization on a massive unheard of scale
NHS cut backs
Promotion of Private schooling
Expulsion of left-wingers from the Labour party
Union reform
Repeal of existing libetarian laws
etc etc
Europe is far more socialized/liberal than the US, it's true. But this begs the question: Has it occured to you that you don't perceive there to be a "left" because the country is already left? You have socialized medicine, more pro-union policies, more generous welfare, far lower rates of participation on organized religion and more.
Christ..how can Europe go any further left without crossing into full socialism?
Europe is far more socialized/liberal than the US, it's true. But this begs the question: Has it occured to you that you don't perceive there to be a "left" because the country is already left? You have socialized medicine, more pro-union policies, more generous welfare, far lower rates of participation on organized religion and more.
Christ..how can Europe go any further left without crossing into full socialism?
"Left" and "right" are also relative positions. Europe is further "left" of the US, for sure, as is most of South America. Most of the rest of the world is to the "left" of the (current) US apart from Singapore, for example, and some hardline conservative middle eastern Islamist theocracies, (monarchies and dictatorships as well). If one averaged out the political positions the worlds nations, most European nations would be somewhere around the center.
No this has not occurred to me. It seems a peculiarly reductionist view, possibly only maintainable by a US citizen. The obverse could also be argued about the US being so far right etc...this of course would be equally wrong.
The fact is that - objectively - there is a 'left position' and there is a 'right position'...individual's stances are necessarily positioned along that spectrum.
Thus, Hitler was extreme-right, Stalin extreme-left. Socialism and Marxism would be left, Straussian 'thought' would be extreme-right. That's just the way it is.
Some other points: If I were you I would beware of statements such as 'how far can Europe....' which blanket Europe as one cohesive entity. The political parties and even systems in Europe are in many cases polar opposites.
Another point; none of those things you label as left were done by Blair - in fact he did the opposite which is my point. Secondly, these things have not been done in the UK or Germany or France or Spain.....quite the contrary.
Fair points. I just was pointing out another way to look at it.
I guess I'm the only one that read the article?
This is an MRI scanner and they are using functional MRI, fMRI. fMRI can be done by any center with a good quality MR scanner. These scans take a very long time because they require baseline scans.
This study was to determine if they could tell if someone was going to add or subtract two numbers. They had to train the system to each individual before they were able to predict. Even then the accuracy of the system was closer to guess work (50/50) than 100% accuracy.
Maybe someday when we have implantable 2T MR scanners the government will be able to read our thoughts in real time. Or maybe someday when a MRI scanner can download our thoughts we'll have to start to worry.
That day is long off so we can all cool the hysteria.
As is typical, this early-stage reporting is completely off base. Chalk it up to the bid for attention to satisfy advertising dollars.
At any rate, everyone can safely remove their tinfoil hats and come back out of their bunkers.
Err...no.....we still have a government that WANTS to do these things.
Then change that. Vote, be active, start a revolution.
For the time being, however, it doesn't look like we'll have implantable 2T MRIs anytime soon. By anytime soon i mean it would take several technological leaps to get there. In fact, I don't think we'll be able to do this until someone has a way to deploy an artificial quantum singularity.