Skip to main content

The modern world: when the coolest new discovery scares the hell out of me...

This from Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2009) — Researchers at Canada's largest children's rehabilitation hospital have developed a technique that uses infrared light brain imaging to decode preference – with the goal of ultimately opening the world of choice to children who can't speak or move.

In a study published this month in The Journal of Neural Engineering, Bloorview scientists demonstrate the ability to decode a person's preference for one of two drinks with 80 per cent accuracy by measuring the intensity of near-infrared light absorbed in brain tissue.

"This is the first system that decodes preference naturally from spontaneous thoughts," says Sheena Luu, the University of Toronto PhD student in biomedical engineering who led the study under the supervision of Tom Chau, Canada Research Chair in pediatric rehab engineering.


I want this for brain-damaged children. I want this for paralyzed people. I want this to work out in the worst way.

But why is it that all I can think about when I think about this new technology is what some government agent (whether from our government or somewhere else) could do with it at Girmo (or any hellhole in the world)?

This is the world we live in ... wherein you have to think, almost instantly, of the evil we could do with new inventions rather than the good.

Maybe it's just me. I really hope so.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Steve-You have every right to be scared. I have watched over the last 4 decades well-intentioned assistive devices/interventions morph into extreme overusage, and misapplied modality of service to our citizens. Most of these have to do with end of life issues. A partial list includes: the ventilator--originally designed to resuscitate young drowning victims--the acknowledgement that a young, viable person can be rescued and returned to a full, productive life. Organ transplants--again, for the acute episode of organ failure in young/mid adulthood, with the relative assurance of return to full, productive engagement. There was a time when a patient wasn't admitted to an intensive care unit after age 65. I am by no means saying the current threshold be 65, but ask any health care provider, the hospitals are turning into nursing homes, and the nursing homes are turning into hospitals and rehab centers. We as a nation really need to examine chemo being started on 90 year olds, who are already bedridden and confined, and organs being allocated to 75+, as a repeat procedure. Tough outcomes, expensive financially and resourcefully for some well intended purposes. Almost forgot my favorite, cryogenics. Woman had husband's sperm banked when he became ill. He subsequently died. A time later decides to go forth and induce pregnancy, post his demise. She wants and is suing for Social Security for the child. And then there's our Constitution, and Bill of Rights. Yea, it's scary.

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...