The Economist says we should be worried about neurotechnology.

The neuroscience (or psychotropic drug) aspect of Prof. Fukuyama's book was, I thought, the least credible of his arguments, but looks like the author of the Economist piece has read the book, since he puts in a good word for Fukuyama's model regulatory agency, the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Libertarians can make an important contribution to this debate as well, since they're already well experienced at pointing out the futility of the "War on Drugs". How much more futile will that policy become when people can inject themselves with the genes to synthesize their drug of choice? Do we then extend the Prohibition to make certain gene sequences illegal?

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Neuroprosthesis News

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This article is poorly researched to say the least. The most interesting example the guy can find for his lead is, without further details, easily dismissed as apocryphal. Maybe if we ask he'll tell us the reasearcher was one Dr. Laurence Caldicott Niven.

Meanwhile, the field of neural pacemakers is rapidly moving intothe mainstream for treatment of many illnesses, as reported way back in September of 2001 in the MIT Technology Review:
www.technologyreview.com/articles/hall0901.asp

Obviously the possibility of using such technology to subvert the will of unsuspicious human will lead to the infringement of civil rights held by innocent pleasure seeking wireheads.

economist 23.5.02 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

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