IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2015 - 27

that, they will try to transplant the
human brain while the person is still
alive, or at least not brain dead. This
sounds like something from a Nazi
concentration camp. Let us remember that we are humans, but Nazis
were also human beings just like us.
But we also see people like Mother
Theresa, and we realize that human
beings are capable of extremely
positive behavior, and also very evil
behavior. We should not delude ourselves that we are not capable of
such things in either direction. Any
one of us is capable of either one or
the other extremes, or any degree in
between them. We will have people
who will do what the Nazis did in
their experiments and even worse,
trying to develop new technologies
with which to accomplish them.
They can do these things in secret
of course, almost like the rituals of
a technocratic religion. People are
going to try to affect these ideas
and they are going to do it at the
expense of other human beings.
Even these ideas in and of themselves can change the technocrat's
vision and understanding of what
it is to be human. That is the real
proximate. We are created in the
image and likeness of God, and
in our understanding, that is what
identifies us as humans. So what
identifies us as humans in a transhumanist era with that mentality?
It is the degrading of the vision of
what makes us human that worries
me most.

example, "add this or that to the
keted in such a way that it seems
shopping list," or "how do you spell
like, well this is a normal thing for
this word," or "what should I feel
people to want and they will actuabout this piece of global news."
ally trade any amount of our privacy
And the contradiction here is that
or initiative, and ultimately sell our
instead of us saying this is a surveilfreedoms for convenience. It is a
lance device, i.e., Amazon Echo, we
form of conditioning. Like Pavlov's
are saying this is a life-saving device,
Dog, we are being conditioned to
a device that will help our family and
trade freedom for convenience. We
provide the ultimate convenience.
will also trade freedom and privaBut we are blind to the fact that it is
cy for security if we are frightened
another source of infiltration.
enough, and we're being condiLP: T he exper iment s w ith
tioned in that direction also. Fear is
microchip implantation were cona great conditioner. One is remindducted to test their acceptability
ed of the movie version of H. G.
in certain circumstances, and the
Wells, The Time Traveller in which
results were interesting. These
the Morlocks have conditioned
tests included a system in which
the Eloi to enter an underground
you could go shopping in a marshelter when sirens sound. The
ket where microchips had
also been attached to all
t he mercha nd ise. T he
microchip implanted in
It is the degrading of the vision
the finger or back of the
hand of the consumer conof what makes us human that
tained all their banking
information, but perhaps
worries me most.
also information that the
wearer was not aware was
there. The convenience
factor was obvious. You could fill
Morlocks, of course, pick several of
your cart and proceed through the
the Eloi which they will butcher and
check out without stopping. One
eat. The siren is an air raid or storm
would just walk through the checkwarning siren. Much of our spiritual
out stand, and a receiver reads the
struggle is toward de-conditioning
chips in all of the items, reads the
ourselves from the passions and
chip implanted in the consumer,
desires that are born of our egoism
and transfers the money from your
and self-focus. Ironically, we think
bank account to the store's bank
that through the conveniences and
account. People will probably go
comforts that we have been condifor such a system. It is rather irontioned to seek, we will have more
ic that people will sell their souls
time. The reality is that we have
for convenience. For example, it
less time than we did fifty years or
is just so hard to type that quesa century ago without our technolotion into Google, when you will be
gies and conveniences. But even
able to just say it, and the program
this lack of the expected extra time
will come back with the answer.
is a result of conditioning about our
Why do your own homework, when
expectations.
you can ask for the answers from a
computer program, and it will give
KM: Do you think we need to
you all the answers. That is one of
be cautious about putting electro
our tragedies. Convenience is marstimulators in the brain?

KM: I see this corruption visibly, as surveillance devices invade
the home. Now we are seeing large
search engine giants investing in
infrastructure inside the home like
sensor-rich DropCams, and smoke
detectors and thermostats that are
connected to the Cloud. And there
are devices we can interrogate using
our voice, and expect to receive an
intelligent response to act on. For

september 2015

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