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The death penalty is one of America's most contentious issues. Critics complain that capital punishment is inhumane, pointing out how some executions have failed to quickly kill criminals (and instead tortured them). Supporters of the death penalty fire back saying capital punishment deters violent crime in society and serves justice to wronged victims. Complicating the matter is that political, ethnic, and religious lines don't easily distinguish death penalty advocates from its critics. In fact, only 31 states even allow capital punishment, so America is largely divided on the issue.
Regardless of the debate, technology will change the entire conversation in the next 10 to 20 years, rendering many of the most potent issues obsolete. For example, it's likely we will have cranial implants in two decades time that will be able to send signals to our brains that manipulate our behaviors. Those implants will be able to control out-of-control tempers and violent actions—and maybe even unsavory thoughts. This type of tech raises the obvious question: Instead of killing someone who has committed a terrible crime, should we instead alter their brain and the way it functions to make them a better person?
Recently, the commercially available Thync device made headlines for being able to alter our moods. Additionally, nearly a half million people already have implants in their heads, most to overcome deafness, but some to help with Alzheimer's or epilepsy. So the technology to change behavior and alter the brain isn't science fiction. The science, in some ways, is already here—and certainly poised to grow, especially with Obama's $3 billion dollar BRAIN initiative, of which $70 million went to DARPA, partially for cranial implant research.
Vice.com is the home of the original article.
[Company Website]: THYNC
(Score: 1) by meustrus on Friday July 24 2015, @08:24PM
In what way would brain implants make executions obsolete? I'm sorry but it's right there in the summary:
Supporters of the death penalty fire back saying capital punishment deters violent crime in society and serves justice to wronged victims.
Brain implants in no way serve justice to wronged victims. They in fact would serve considerably less justice than the current alternative, life in prison. And while a brain implant is pretty scary, execution or life in prison is objectively a worse fate. There is absolutely no way that you can convince the death penalty supporters to switch over to this pie-in-the-sky police state technology. At least not to replace the death penalty.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:28AM
The only solution is to intentionally make the chip horrible. Make the victims quivering piles of flesh, give them insane cravings and spasms.
Then of course throw in the malfunction and software bugs and the crackers and script kiddies that make you do the moon walk when they press a button on their phone...
Hell on earth, we're getting there.