I just had to share this with you all. It's especially nasty. I've come
across some insidious stuff lately, but this one really takes the cherry.
It's from a piece by=20
Coates, J. (1998). "The next twenty-five years of technology: opportunities
and risks". In 21st Century technologies: Promises and perils of a dynamic
future, OECD. (1998), (pp. 33-46). Paris: OECD.
"Every mental characteristic, whether it is a matter of personality,
cognition, or emotionality, will eventually be identified as a biochemical
process which is itself largely genetically determined and hence a
candidate for intervention. Those interventions may be pharmaceutical or
they may be genetic, acoustic, visual, or by means yet to be developed [as
if the former already had been PG]. A substantial step in the direction of
brain technology is the current popularity (!) of the drug Prozac , which
was developed to deal with depression. So far it is the closest approach to
Aldous Huxley's soma, the "feel good" drug. It has in just a few years
become one of the most widely sold drugs in the United States.
The demand is there for mental improvement and enhancement, and the
technologies are just beginning to emerge. Within the next decade,
schizophrenia and psychotic depression will be history in World 1 [I assume
he means the First World here PG], as the fundamental physiology, genetics
and biochemistry are worked out and the appropriate cures =96 or more
importantly, preventative strategies =96 are developed. Brain technologies
will go well beyond disease, offering relief for the person who is
short-tempered the person who has no sense of humour, the person who is
overly emotional. And relief from these conditions will find a substantial
market. Beyond that will be the possibility and later the practice of
enhancing people's cognitive processes, enabling them to think more
clearly, to have a better command of arithmetic, to have a better memory
for faces, to be more generous and loving, or to be less prideful or
slothful." (Coates, 1998, p. 42).=20
Policy goons are formulating laws (the US has already ratified this
perspective in law) on the basis of these fundamentalist lunatics' work.
This guy _wants_ Huxley's Brave New World. He really believes in it. Huxley
was also a eugenicist, wasn't he? Or was that his father? ... Arrrhgggggg,
what the hell ..
Phil=20
Phil Graham
p.graham who-is-at qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html