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posted by CoolHand on Monday May 15 2017, @01:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-didnt-just-think-at-me-did-you dept.

"Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind," wrote the playwright John Milton in 1634.

But, nearly 400 years later, technological advances in machines that can read our thoughts mean the privacy of our brain is under threat.

Now two biomedical ethicists are calling for the creation of new human rights laws to ensure people are protected, including "the right to cognitive liberty" and "the right to mental integrity".

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/delete-thoughts-read-your-mind-without-your-knowledge-neurotechnology-new-human-rights-laws-a7701661.html

Scientists have already developed devices capable of telling whether people are politically right-wing or left-wing. In one experiment, researchers were able to read people's minds to tell with 70 per cent accuracy whether they planned to add or subtract two numbers.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @07:23PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @07:23PM (#510193)

    From TFS: "two biomedical ethicists are calling for the creation of new human rights laws"

    Since when would any "law" inhibit the worst possible practitioners, namely: governments?

    Privacy? Ever heard of a search warrant? They come in cereal boxes.

    Private property? Try not paying your property taxes. Go ahead. Try, and see how long it's "your property".

    Humanity as we knew it is doomed. Deal with it.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @10:30PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @10:30PM (#510263)

    You have misspelled "Capitalists".

    Now, if you want to look at -government- as degrading to human rights, you'll need to look at individual crooked politicians who allow themselves to be bought off by Capitalists, rather than serving the vast majority of their constituency (The Working Class).

    Capitalism, as practiced in the USA, seeks to maximize profits for the Ownership Class; all other concerns are subordinate to making money for the Overlords.
    Capitalists seek to undermine legislation that would regulate workplaces (read: protect workers) and to undermine Executive Dept. enforcement of those regulations (read: protecting workers), if ever enacted, with the Capitalists seeing those regulations (read: worker protections) as cutting into profits.
    (See the story about the Coal CEO whose actions resulted in 29 dead miners.)

    N.B. In his 696-page book which analyzes 250 years of Capitalism, Professor of Economics Thomas Piketty notes that Capitalism continually concentrates wealth (and political power, see above) in fewer and fewer hands and results in Oligarchy.

    "What have you (in the Constitutional Convention) given us, Mr. (Benjamin) Franklin?
    "A republic--if you can keep it."

    Switzerland's form of Direct Democracy has been mentioned in the (meta)thread.
    It's clear that it is possible to do government properly.

    Onlookers, however, don't make significant changes to government.
    Individuals becoming informed and voting is a start.
    In the USA, -REAL- change comes from people joining in the operation of a political party and making sure that decisions about the platform and the choices of candidates get made properly.

    The Tea Party hijacked the Republicans Party on behalf of their paymasters (the Kochs, Sheldon Adelson, et al.).
    If you want change, you will have to mirror the participation of (and overwhelm the efforts of) those whose politics you abhor.

    Life is politics.
    If you choose not to engage, you lose by forfeit.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:05AM (#510369)

      So true, and so depressing. Everybody else is too busy being a temporarily embarrassed millionaire or else somebody who gets upset any time the government reduces “their money.”