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Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
eglamkowski writes "Researchers Discover Gene That Controls Ability To Learn Fear.
The poor, misguided scientists say this will enable them to treat people who suffer from anxiety, panic disorders or depression(??). Of course, it also means an evil, despotic country that is cloning humans for its army can make its soldiers completely fearless, eliminating one source of possible defeat on the battlefield (breaking of morale).
(Why does there seem to be no cynical scientists? ;-)"
This has only been observed in rodent specimens. However similar mammals are across the neural make-up spectrum, there is still little proof that this might work in a human brain.
Being more complex, our brain might not be susceptible to such treatment. I'll be keeping an eye on this effort, however; for it could yield some effective treatments for some of the most common mental disorders. These would be depression, anxiety, bi-polar disease, etc..
Being Bi-Polar myself, this would be welcome.
Of all the Universal Constants, here's one I know: Nice guys finish last
Besides, why would you go to all the trouble of creating a clone army? It's much easier just to "condition" your existing soldiers to be fearless. You'd still have to do lots of conditioning with the fearless clones - you have to get them to follow orders unquestioningly and be willing to kill on command.
It's also worth noting that an army of clones could easily be wiped out by a carefully engineered bioweapon (or an accidental illness, for that matter). Genetic diversity in your troops is an asset.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
"...First of all, it only stops learned fear. This would mean that you would somehow have to stop these soldiers from learning fear of combat situations. You would have to do that at a young age, then how the hell would you train them?"
... as opposed to what? Instinctual fear? Isn't most all fear 'learned'?
I think YOU need to RTFA, and absorb the practical consequences of discovering the properties and behaviors of this specific signal pathway.
It directly addresses that, obviously, the lesser-useful "learned-fear" inhibition is hinged upon by a short-protein (GRP) which is encoded by the Grp gene.
The grammar of the article is bizarre.
They constantly refer to "learned fear"
I believe what they know now, a little more specifically, is this:
how "learning fear" (ie, memory imprinting) works.
what this gives us/them a clue to:
how triggering or retrieving the correct "fear reaction" can be altered or stifled.
Who cares about the "army of clones"? The most direct use of any bio-tech is weaponry. In this case weapons that make people irrationally afraid.
Subjugation, anyone? The obligatory Philip K. Dick reference incoming: the emotion programs from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Just dial up a neurochemical 'scenario' and you're all set for some altered perceptions... hey, every time you see Ashcroft's face on TV your FeelingTrans can hit ya with a healthy dose of fear.
Bottomline is that this is the first step towards controlling ALL facets of fear.
-- The truth is the only thing that nobody will believe.
Y'know, this is fucked up, because I'm named Joe, but I never attended a YMCA summer camp. ;)
Possible culprits could be Asperger's or similar, but having reacted in a similar (if less extreme) way in my younger days, I'm going to have to vote for over-sheltering, combined perhaps with genetic predisposition ("geek genes" vs. even Asperger's, perhaps).
Don't underestimate the concept of "social retardation," the parascientific term school counselors use to refer to the subject. If, for most of your life, you grow up around authority figures (parents) with both a healthy intelligence *and* an overbearing/strict mindset, you learn quickly to respect authority- and you don't pick up on principles like "the schoolyard code," "taking it like a man," etc. If you do get Simpsons-style clearance to fight back (I did), you still don't have the basic social consciousness to follow 'the rules' - King of the Hill sucks, but they've got the Bobby character demonstrating this in nearly every episode. (Thinking specifically of the nut-kicking one here.)
In my case, I grew up, realized those camp counselors were just stoned college kids, etc etc... it just took 10 years of social contact beyond getting-my-ass-kicked to pick up on it.