Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The Researcher Made me Do it.

Unfortunately, as we have seen, anything that has been invented can be manipulated.

And inventing a device that makes people walk by remote control, against their will is no different.

True, the invention is now envisioned only to make theme park rides and video games more interesting. And also true, right now it is a rather clumsy device, still in its experimental stages and which requires the test subject to put the helmet on their head in the first place.

However, it is hard to imagine that after a decade or two of refinement, such a device wouldn't have much enhanced capability, perhaps replacing the helmet with a directed beam of energy, and refinements allowing the person at the controls to direct all of the subject's movements, not just the legs and feet. Certainly, this would prove tempting to people with evil motives. Criminals such as robbers and child molesters would be obvious examples, but perhaps of more concern in terms of the future of society itself is that if we don't now take action to limit our government's ability to control virtually every aspect of one's private and public life, the day when we are physically manipulated by someone, perhaps even hundreds of miles away with a joystick cannot be any longer considered the stuff of science fiction.

2 comments:

dorsano said...

I'm not sure what to say about this one, Eli. You've stumped me - I'm at a loss for words if you can believe it. :)

I think I need a break from reading blogs and the news for that matter. Time to go get lost for a couple of weeks in the badlands of South Dakota I think.

Anonymous said...

All really good articles again this week, Eli. Thank you. I've got to admit this one unsettles me, though.