Dave Emory’s entire lifetime of work is available on a flash drive that can be obtained here. (The flash drive includes the anti-fascist books available on this site.)
COMMENT: Decades ago, we undertook to chronicle the frightening mind control programs that U.S. and other intelligence services have implemented.
Fielding mind control assassins, whose actions can be erased from their consciousness was an early and successful effort. To this day, the sheep filling the ranks of the working press will not go near such investigations.
As readers peruse the items excerpted below, they should remember that military and intelligence establishments are almost always way ahead of the civilian sector in cutting-edge scientific research and development.
Implanting faulty memories and scanning brains using small devices augur the dawning of an entirely different technological age. It is probable that these technologies have already been developed, tested and (possibly) deployed by intelligence services. If not, they soon will be.
It is also a safe bet that such technologies will be interfaced.
Internet privacy will be the least of concerns in the future.
Suffice it to say, that we are entering into a technological age which will not only render constitutional democracy obsolete, but will change and negate the very concepts underlying our physical and cognitive existence and civilization.
And YOU were worried about internet and telephone privacy!
EXCERPT: Scientists haven’t yet found a way to mend a broken heart, but they’re edging closer to manipulating memory and downloading instructions from a computer right into a brain.
Researchers from the Riken‑M.I.T. Center for Neural Circuit Genetics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took us closer to this science-fiction world of brain tweaking last week when they said they were able to create a false memory in a mouse.
The scientists reported in the journal Science that they caused mice to remember receiving an electrical shock in one location, when in reality they were zapped in a completely different place. The researchers weren’t able to create entirely new thoughts, but they applied good or bad feelings to memories that already existed.
“It wasn’t so much writing a memory from scratch, it was basically connecting two different types of memories. We took a neutral memory, and we artificially updated that to make it a negative memory,” said Steve Ramirez, one of the M.I.T. neuroscientists on the project.
It may sound insignificant and perhaps not a nice way to treat mice, but it is not a dramatic leap to imagine that one day this research could lead to computer-manipulation of the mind for things like the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, Mr. Ramirez said.
Technologists are already working on brain-computer interfaces, which will allow us to interact with our smartphones and computers simply by using our minds. And there are already gadgets that read our thoughts and allow us to do things like dodge virtual objects in a computer game or turn switches on and off with a thought.
But the scientists who are working on memory manipulation are the ones who seem to be pushing the boundaries of what we believe is possible. Sure, it sounds like movie fantasy right now, but don’t laugh off the imagination of Hollywood screenwriters; sometimes the movies can be a great predictor of things to come.
In the movie, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” a character played by Jim Carrey uses a service that erases memories to wipe his brain of his former girlfriend, played by Kate Winslet.
But it seems the movie’s screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, was selling science short.
“The one thing that the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” gets wrong, is that they are erasing an entire memory,” said Mr. Ramirez of M.I.T. “I think we can do better, while keeping the image of Kate Winslet, we can get rid of the sad part of that memory.”
Hollywood and science-fiction writers, of course, have had fun with memory manipulation over the years.
In the film “Total Recall,” which is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, a character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger receives a memory implant of a fake vacation to Mars. In “The Matrix,” characters can download new skills like languages or fighting techniques to their mind, much like downloading a file to a computer.
Far-fetched? Perhaps, and we’re not yet fighting our robot overlords as the humans were in “The Matrix,” but researchers really are exploring ways to upload new information to the brain.
In 2011, scientists working in collaboration with Boston University and A.T.R. Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, published a paper on a process called Decoded Neurofeedback, or “DecNef,” which sends signals to the brain through a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, or FMRI, that can alter a person’s brain activity pattern. In time, these scientists believe they could teach people how to play a musical instrument while they sleep, learn a new language or master a sport, all by “uploading” information to the brain.
Writing to the brain could allow us to interact with our computers, or other human beings, just by thinking about it. . . . .
EXCERPT: Emotiv Lifesciences, the company Le co-founded, produces portable, high-resolution EEG (electroencephalogram) brain-scanning headsets that Le hopes will open new windows on the complex functioning of our brain. On August 1, Emotiv unveiled Emotiv Insight, a faster, next-generation wireless brain scanner that collects real-time data on the wearer’s thoughts and feelings and delivers it directly to a computer, phone, or other device through Android, iOS, OSX, Linux, and Windows platforms.
Le hopes the product, which costs $199, can further democratize brain research and help scientists gather more data. Using the EEG headsets, she says, people around the world can study brains under conditions and stimuli as varied as those we encounter in everyday life—because subjects can wear the headset while doing everyday tasks.
Total Recall is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. Another short story of his, Minority Report, got onto the big screen as well. The main character played by Tom Cruise in that film is the chief of a police force created to fight what is called “pre-crime”. The intrigue takes place in Washington in 2054. That special police force targets individuals for “crime” happening in their thoughts, either as mere imaginings or as real projects. What happens to the character of Tom Cruise is beside the point. What is important to note here, is that in a very short future police and intelligence organizations will begin to target individuals (if it is not already the case...) based on what they think, not what they do, like it used to be in the Middle Ages. We are heading backwards.