Shapiro,evolution, bad childhood and epigenetic changes (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 16:36 (4576 days ago) @ David Turell

I found this report disturbing, in so far as it appeared to pave the way for Huxley's Brave New World, in which biological engineering and psychotropic drugs are used to determine people's behaviour.-DAVID: Don't worry. Science writers like to pontificate about future results as it heightens the importance of their report. Our mind is independent as consciousness is and should be. It is influenced by psychiatric treatment without drugs. If a democracy is maintained Huxley doesn't work.-Your last comment takes us off in a slightly different direction, but is an important subject in itself. It may be that Huxley's vision can be prevented by a functioning democracy, but we should not be complacent. Already over here and no doubt in USA as well, technology has eroded vast areas of privacy in a manner foreseen by George Orwell in 1984. The "hacking" scandal which is in the process of destroying Rupert Murdoch's empire may be the tip of the iceberg. We know that virtually all our electronic forms of communication can be monitored, and even now we have no idea to what extent we are under surveillance, either by the authorities or by crooks. The present UK government is actually seeking to increase its snooping rights, while at the same time ... just like its predecessors ... defying the Freedom of Information Act on the pretext that revealing the truth about some of its activities and commissioned reports would be against the national interest or would inhibit its advisers from telling them what they really think. Authorities can play with human minds even in a democracy, as is only too obvious from certain thriving religious communities in our own western society ... and I don't just mean Muslim. Genetic engineering has crept into agriculture, and the article you referred us to clearly points to it being used in medicine. And why not, if it cures sickness? But where will the limits be drawn, and by whom? Just how much do we know about the actions of people in power, even in our democracy? Importantly, we have a free press, but that free press can itself be corrupt. Three cheers for The Guardian, but no cheers for The News of the World whose criminal activities it exposed. There you have the two sides of the coin ... good media exposing bad. My point is that our democracy is in the hands of politicians, the media, big business and certain other authorities (e.g. the military, the police), not one of whom can be trusted. And we have not even mentioned the vast areas of the world that are governed by undemocratic regimes! Huxley's vision is not just a warning to the west ... it applies to the human race as a whole. We already have brainwashed people prepared to murder and die for the cause drummed into them. It's only a small step, then, for the authorities to dispense with drumming and to use a scalpel, needle or pill instead.
 
I agree with you that democracy is our best if not our only protection against the sort of power envisaged by writers like Orwell and Huxley. That is why I'm concerned at the manner in which your country's democracy and mine is being increasingly and subversively undermined.