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Bioethicist Jonathan Moreno Talks Jacked-In Soldiers And Military Neuroscience
pigrabbitbear writes "Who's driving a lot of neuro research? The military. Much of it is health related, like figuring out how to make prosthetics work more seamlessly and helping diagnose brain injuries. But the military's involvement highlights the basic ethical quandary of neurological development: When our brains pretty much define who we are, what happens when you start adding tech in there? And what happens when you take it away? Jonathan Moreno is quite possibly the top bioethicist in the country, and along with Michael Tennison, recently penned a fascinating essay on the role and ethics of using neuroscience for national security. He also recently updated his book Mind Wars, a seminal look into the military's work with the brain. In this interview he discusses brain implants, drones, and what will happen when military tech hits the civilian world."
Caffeine affects our brain in a non-trivial way. If we're hungry, we behave differently. So food affects our brain in a non-trivial way. How is ingesting caffeine and food different than adding hardware to our brain?
Oh, I don't know... watch:
Soldiers
Surrogates
Star Trek: First Contact (imo best modern ST film)
Ghost in the Shell
and any other sci-fi flick
Previewing comments are for sissies!
What sort of selection process is used to determine who is the 'top' bioethicist? Anyone at all can consider the ethical implications of brain implants.
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This reminds me of Life Support, especiallt about your brain defining who you are. That episode was a perfect illustration of this topic. (The linked synopsis isn't very good, I'm afraid).
Free Martian Whores!
While telekinesis doesn't exist in the real world, I wonder if an implant or headband could transmit core emotional responses to the rest of your platoon via wireless link. That is to say, you wouldn't be able to transmit exact words but rather basic core primitive thoughts and emotions. If one of your members are in danger or senses a major problem, everyone could be aware of the situation simultaneously without a single word spoken on the battlefield.
Life is not for the lazy.
As it is now, the greatest tool(weapon) we have lies between our ears, more powerful than the fastest jets and the biggest bombs, and anything that improves it to perform certain tasks better is an option. So genetic manipulation, chips in brains, anything. Because if you don't, then someone else will and then you lose.
I'm guessing most of this is done in secrecy to prevent public outcries.
Lo and behold, for I am a sig!
Neuromancer, I remember playing this game back in the early 80's on my Commodore 64.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
How about just ending all wars? Then we won't need prosthesis for soldiers. Plus you can give me back some of my tax money spent on war welfare.
It's not so much "ways of killing people" as it is "ways of making sure no one else can wantonly kill or subjugate you".
"Old Man's War" series, especially the second book "The Ghost Brigades". See BrainPal in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man's_War.
"Old Man's War" was a great book for me. IMHO right up there with Starship Trooper, Forever War and Armor.
Because psychosis is a common side effect with hip replacements these days.
It's a game mechanic, and a pretty bad one at that, to try and prevent players from getting every cybernetic enhancement available. Not a comment on reality.
I got this brain implant from the government and I feel fine. In fact, I feel better than fine. When I watch sitcoms, sports, and reality shows--it's bliss.
It is amazing how much money can be found when it comes to ways of killing people - even indirectly e.g hey soldier, boy go 'n kill all those colored folks, and hey if you get your brain shredded by an IED on the wa, we can (sort of) put you back together again.
History proves that pacifism fails. Unless there are non-pacifists around to protect the pacifists.
Elizabeth Moon, author of an extensive corpus of Science Fiction, opines for the BBC: "If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached -- a barcode if you will; an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals. It would be imprinted on everyone at birth. Point the scanner at someone and there it is. ... In war soldiers could easily differentiate legitimate targets in a population from non combatants... Anonymity would be impossible as would mistaken identity making it easier to place responsibility accurately, not only in war but also in non-combat situations far from the war."
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120522-barcode-everyone-at-birth
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
From now on, if you want to start a war on a developed country, you should do it on a Tuesday. That's the day the soldiers are down for their Windows Updates.
Weird. You must read the same tech news site that I do!
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/05/23/0156226/sci-fi-writer-elizabeth-moon-believes-everyone-should-be-chipped
Also, in case someone hadn't read that story yet, and is outraged at Elizabeth Moon's comment, they were asked for controversial sound bytes. She just happened to give one that was publicized, and criticized.
http://e-moon60.livejournal.com/442811.html
Right, because no one has ever cloned an RFID or similar unique identifier.
And all databases are error free.
The idea was that, at some point and after enough mods, you become distanced from your own humanness and humanity itself; at what point do you become a cyborg and no longer human?
A single functional implant makes you a cyborg as long as that implant has some synthetic electrical component.
And knowing one's SSN allows you to divine their guilt or innocence, or whether their a combatant or civilian.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Ghost in the shell tackles this issue nicely in a sci fi way.
It's not so much "ways of killing people" as it is "ways of making sure no one else can wantonly kill or subjugate you".
And maybe grabbing all the oil and installing a puppet government while you are at it. Face it, it's "ways of killing people" to justify military spending the can't be paid for while more important things get no funding whatsoever.
what will happen when military tech hits the civilian world?
It does already, and as long as it keeps doing it in Muslim countries I'm all for it.
And if you run out of resources before you kill everyone else? US military spending is unsustainable and pushing the national debt to insane levels. High tech comes at a high cost and brain implants are not going to change that.
Heh,
I submitted this on Mon or Tues, too. :-)
I like her LJ...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Your humanity is greater than just he lump of meat that we're residing in. If I was able to make an AI that reacted the same way as I would, wouldn't that have the same humanity as me? I would say yes, and that's got no meaty bits. Let's say my heart fails and I get a stainless steel / titanium impeller implanted. Would that make me a heartless robot? Look for the "your excuse is invalid" kid -- he's got metal legs and a smile that would melt stone.
Now, I'm already part titanium so this may be the metal bits talking, but what your body does and is capable of does not reflect on what your mind and persona are and are capable of.
"Humans: Self-forged, picking up where the Gods left off."
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion." - Mentat mantra, something added by David Lynch to his Dune film
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
that's the right specialty wiki for Trek, though sometimes it's interesting to compare the regular wiki article and the specialty wiki article
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Sounds an awful lot like the precursor to the new Deus Ex game. I wonder if we'll see this as a result http://www.sarifindustries.com/
It's a supreme tragedy for the human race that eugenics has been so powerfully (perhaps inextricably) linked with the policies of Nazi Germany. We're fools for not being able to dissociate the two and take an objective look at the idea.
Why is it 'bullshit' to think that we just MIGHT be able to apply our knowledge of genetics to improve the condition of the human species across multiple future generations? Think about cystic fibrosis for example, a hereditary disease resulting from genetic contributions of both parents. From the perspective of overall human well being, is eliminating this disease in perpetuity not worth the inconvenience of a few people in each generation finding someone else to procreate with?
I don't presume to know the answers, but I think these sorts of questions are obviously relevant and our fear of the Nazis shouldn't preclude this type of discussion.
Building an EMP rifle is trivial technology. Hardening against EMP is not as easy - if you build a shield, you just use a bigger pulse that over comes the shield. A friend of mine who was in the army for many years said "Look, between a Map and a GPS? I'll take the map. Shoot a map with a bullet - whaddya got? A map with a hole in it. Shoot a GPS and waddya got? Useless Junk." It all scales from there. The "high / robotic / tech" battlefield is just some circle jerk fantasy by beltway bandits looking for a way to strip mine more money out of the Treasury Dept.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
She's pretty stupid if she thinks sane people on the battlefield will want to have a "I'm here, shoot me" tag.
If you can ID a person from far away without their cooperation you can usually detect that person from even further away.
Whereas if you have to be next to someone to ID him, either/both of you are dead/neutralized already if he is an enemy.
Steven Pinker on the Myth of Violence
Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence.
No two (relatively) liberal democracies have ever waged a war against each other.
I would imagine that the military would have a means of turning it off, while civilians could not.
So if you see someone in civvies who's chip isn't working, he probably ain't a civilian.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Yes, but. Do you know what the QUEERS are doing to the SOIL?!?
-
This is +5 Interesting because it's interesting that someone could be so naive and stupid.
The scary part is that she votes.
I think she missed the whole point entirely. In order to implement a global coordinated chip-planting program to tag every person on earth, you would need to have either a) governments working together, or b) a single world government. Either way, war would not be an issue.