Converging ideologies against human performance

Turn off your TV! (By Azly Rahman, malaysiakini.com)

Our children are bombarded with thousands of images daily as they sit passively in front of the television set. Their brain cells are slowly being turned into miniature advertising billboards.

These billboards become field of dreams and consciousness, turning the self into whatever the producers of propaganda wish them to turn into. These brain cells are conditioned by the nano-technology of smart TV programming. More here

I had no idea that the networks employed nanoscientists. As near as I can tell, these evil geniuses must have devised some sort of nanoparticle beam that can be sent through your TV's IR remote receiver (also secretly a sender), enter the body through the mouth as the victims snack on junk food, penetrate the blood-brain barrier and restructure our synapses into a pattern determined back at network headquarters.

That's the only method of nanotech mind control via television that I can think of. Then, again, I'm not very creative. Too much TV.

But I would take a very serious look at what Samsung is doing with nanotube displays ...

In all seriousness, though, the assumption here is that total control of the mind can be achieved through mastery over our neurons. While I doubt that TV networks that bring us "The Bachelor" and "Wife Swap" are capable of such sophisticated mind control, get ready for these kinds of fears to enter into political discussions in the United States, where the possibilities of "human enhancement" have already raised red flags in Congress. The target will be this vague thing they heard of called "nanotechnology."

This author, Azly Rahman, "is a transcultural philosopher rooted in the tradition of Critical Theory and Pedagogy." As near as I can tell from that collection of rather impressive words, Mr. Rahman is a neo-Marxist who crosses international borders to attack your children's brains (sounds even more frightening than the nanoparticle beam, to me). So, he approaches "nanotechnology" from the left, meaning he sees it as just another corporate and capitalist tool to keep the common man under control.

The religious right, of course, has no problem with using technology to keep the rabble dumb and pliable. But they'd rather not have the government mess with these obviously perfect bodies and brains that God gave us. Every synapse is sacred.

Look for a meeting of the "minds" between left and right on this issue, and at its core will be this "nanotechnology" thing, whatever that is. Is the Congressional Nano Caucus ready with a "nano is pants, nano is not 'bots" argument? And, if so, how can they distract attention away from one of the biggest proponents of human enhancement via nanotech: U.S. nano architect Mike Roco? But Roco uses a nice acronym for NanoBioInfoCogno convergence -- NBIC. Hmmm. Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like NBC ...

Backgrounder
Congress is thinking about thinking
Evangelicals and Nano-Gnosticism