Pleasure vs. pain in the programmed society
“In experiments on mice, scientists rewired the circuits of the brain and changed the animals’ bad memories into good ones…The researchers said they were able to do the opposite as well—change a pleasurable memory in mice into one associated with fear.” (Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, 8/27/14)
Aldous Huxley once wrote to George Orwell:
[The world’s rulers’] lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined inBrave New World.
Brain researchers believe they have the future of the world in their hands. For example, they assume that one day, they will be able to turn on or turn off circuits that induce pleasure and pain in humans. Easily, reliably, precisely.
If humans seek to find pleasure and avoid pain, or if they pursue goals that deliver pleasure as a side effect…why wait? Why go through the process of striving at all? Why not cut to the bottom line immediately and experience pleasure?
In an age where instant reward, entitlement, flickering attention, and entertainment are paramount, why not stimulate the brain and give people what they want?
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