Homeland Security is currently using the technology for a variety of purposes. In a slideshow shown to Homeland Security - presented by the co-author of the SWS concept paper cited previously, Alok Chaturvedi - graphics are shown that describe the uses for the technology. Experimentations with Engineering, Economics, Public policy, Law, Management and Psychology are listed as possible inputs for the virtual population. A graph that displays the emotions for the population reads "Sad," "Content," "Aroused," and "Happy". The "impact of globalization" is also listed as a variable in "modeling an adversaries viewpoint". [7]
Microsoft "monitoring group activities"
The workplace will soon be infiltrated by a technology developed by Microsoft that will, as the Register reports, act as "...some sort of "activity monitoring system" that keeps an eye on worker productivity using various "physiological or environmental sensors." These sensors would track everything from heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, facial expressions, and blood pressure to brain signals and galvanic skin response."
The purpose of this technology, according to the patent, is to enable assistance to be sent to those workers who need it, or assign the task to someone else who is able to complete it. The Register also points out that the information will be stored away in a database for future reference. This enables "...user performance [that] can be readily compared..." [8]
The Microsoft patent states,
| "For example, the system can infer through physiological and activity sensing that a user is becoming more frustrated with his current activity and thus could benefit from assistance from another user who has experience with the same or similar activity. This can be accomplished via parameter and/or threshold settings whereby the detection of parameter violations or satisfied thresholds can indicate a particular frustration level or at the very least that the user has become "frustrated" or "stressed"." [9] |
Surveillance and anticipatory conformity
In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, surveillance has expanded exponentially. A phenomenon called "anticipatory conformity" is becoming more prevalent as the surveillance society grows. The term, coined in 1988 by Harvard psychologist Shoshana Zuboff, describes a process of self censorship as a result of constant surveillance. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham designed the Panopticon style prison in 1785 which put this principle to use. The prison included a central tower constantly manned by guards that stands in the center of a circular building in which inmates are unsure whether they are being watched. Bentham saw the Panopticon system being used in "...punishing the incorrigible, guarding the insane, reforming the vicious, confining the suspected, employing the idle, maintaining the helpless, curing the sick, instructing the willing in any branch of industry, or training the rising race in the path of education: in a word, whether it be applied to the purposes of perpetual prisons in the room of death, or prisons for confinement before trial, or penitentiary-houses, or houses of correction, or work-houses, or manufactories, or mad-houses, or hospitals, or schools." [emphasis added] [10]
Lynn Duke quotes Soshana Zuboff, coiner of the term anticipatory conformity, in his Washington Post article, Uniqueness lost in surveillance society,
| “I think the first level of that is we anticipate surveillance and we conform, and we do that with awareness,” she says. “We know, for example, when we’re going through the security line at the airport not to make jokes about terrorists or we’ll get nailed, and nobody wants to get nailed for cracking a joke. It’s within our awareness to self-censor. And that self-censorship represents a diminution of our freedom." [11] |
As surveillance becomes more prevalent, Zuboff says that anticipatory conformity will "become more intense". Zbigniew Brzezinski, again writing in Between two Ages, sees a dictatorship eventually forming in a new technocratic era of electronic surveillance and control,
| "This [surveillance and data mining] will encourage tendencies through the next several decades toward a technocratic era, a dictatorship leaving even less room for political procedures as we know them." [12] |
Future Eugenics and life extension
The Human Genome Project has given rise to promising developments in the realm of medicine, allowing personalized treatments for disease. The project has also opened a doorway into genetic tinkering with the unborn. Selecting embryos that are disease free has been made possible by genetic screening. Genetic manipulation, unlike screening, may allow in the future a selection of specific traits for an unborn child. Professor Michio Kaku, writing in his 1997 book Visions, warns that there is a danger of a new eugenics emerging from genetic enhancement technology. Kaku states,
|
"One long-term danger for the
far future is that those who are
the wealthiest will be able to
afford to improve their germ
line, while others will not,
leaving the rest of society
behind, eventually creating a
new biological caste system.
Gregory Kavka, a philosopher at
the University of California at
Irvine, says, "Any such move
toward genetic enhancement has
the potential of reestablishing
social inequality, though along
new lines. Old aristocracies of
birth, color, or gender may
dissipate, only to be replaced
by a new genetic aristocracy, or
'genotocracy.'" "The deep fracture lines of society could become chasms if only the wealthy have access to choosing their germ line..." [1] |
This scenario of a society divided by advanced genetics was also seen by the U.K. Ministry of Defense strategic trends 2007-2036 report. The report stated,
| "The application of advanced genetics could challenge current assumptions about human nature and existence. Initially employed for medical purposes, breakthroughs in these areas could be put to ethically questionable uses, such as the super-enhancement of human attributes, including physical strength and sensory perception. Extreme variation in attributes could arise between individuals, or where enhancement becomes a matter of fashion, between societies, creating additional reasons for conflict." [2] |
Many scientists and proponents of genetic enhancement realize that the cost of this technology will be immense. Some of them see the exorbitant cost as a eugenic policy in and of itself, as it would only allow for the "most successful generative lines" to have access to the enhancement. John Campbell of the University of California writes in his paper The Moral Imperative of Our Future Evolution,
|
"The costs
[of genetic enhancement] will be enormous, far beyond what most people could afford.
This has kept our democratic society from appreciating that
these possibilities will be used and will be important.
However, their feasibility cannot be judged from what the
average person will be willing to pay to procreate. What
matters are the resources that the most successful
generative lines will be able to apply to their goals. A
million dollars per conception seems a great underestimate
to me for the beings who hold evolution's frontier." "We should not imagine that people will just dabble in their evolution. Another generation will fan autoevolution into the all-consuming endeavor of the intellectuals, scientists and economists. The resources of the world probably will suddenly be shifted to this enterprise. Remaining "humans" will realize that they have been displaced from their former privileged status as the masters of destiny." [3] |
Advanced genetics also offers a tool for the creation of subservient workers, though an intent to do so is met with denial. The Times Online reports that, "Aldous Huxley may have got it right. In Brave New World, his classic futuristic novel, the author envisaged a society divided into castes from Alpha at the top to Epsilon at the bottom."
The Times Online reports,
|
"...experiments conducted on
rhesus monkeys have shown for
the first time that animal
behaviour can be permanently
altered, turning the subjects
from aggressive to “compliant”
creatures." The scientists did so by blocking the effects of a gene in the brain called D2, which cut off the link between the monkeys’ motivation and perceived reward. Humans have an identical gene. [4] |
A doctor working for the project denied any attempt to modify humans into becoming slaves, saying, "Genetically manipulating people to become slaves is not in their interests, but other changes might be."
Life extension
The Ministry of Defense also identified the possible uses of life extension technologies in the aforementioned strategic report. "Dictatorial or despotic rulers" are named as being interested in acquiring such technologies.
| "Developments in genetics might allow treatment of the symptoms of ageing and this would result in greatly increased life expectancy for those who could afford it. The divide between those that could afford to ‘buy longevity’ and those that could not, could aggravate perceived global inequality. Dictatorial or despotic rulers could potentially also ‘buy longevity’, prolonging their regimes and international security risks." [5] |
The CIA's Global Trends 2015
also discusses life extension, stating, "Biotechnology will drive
medical breakthroughs that will enable the
world’s wealthiest people to improve their health and increase their
longevity dramatically..." [6]
In summary of parts 1 and 2 of this report, humanity is facing dramatic, challenging, and dire times. Techno-biological tyranny seems to be the best descriptor for what is emerging. As we move full speed ahead into the future, lessons of the past cannot be forgotten. Memories of the slavery and bondage of our ancestors as subjects of royal elites must not fade from our minds.
Citation:
Societal control through technology
[1] ] Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era. Penguin books, 1976
[2] "Outlook 2008". The Futurist. Nov-Dec 2007. Available at <http://www.wfs.org/Nov-Dec%20Files/TOPTEN.htm>
[3] Cupp, John. "USJFCOM teams with Purdue University to add the human factor to war game simulations". United States Joint Forces Command. February 4, 2004. Available at <http://www.mgmt.purdue.edu/centers/perc/html/Media/USJFCOM.htm>
[4] Chaturvedi, Alok Dr. "Sentient World Simulation (SWS): A Continuously Running Model of the Real World". August 22, 2006.
[5] http://www.simulexinc.com/
[6] Baard, Mark. "Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale". The Register. June 23, 2007. Available at <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/23/sentient_worlds/>
[7] "Towards a Synthetic Environment for Computational Homeland Security". Available at (requires flash player) <http://www.science.purdue.edu/CyberInfr/Presentations/Chaturvedi.swf>
[8] Microsoft Patent #20070300174. Available here
[9] Ibid 8.
[10] Clark, Robert. "The Panopticon". The Literary Encyclopedia. Available at <http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10390>
[11] Duke, Lynn. "Uniqueness lost in surveillance society". Washington Post. December 10, 2007. Available at <http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071210/FEAT/712100363>
[12] Ibid 1.
Future Eugenics and life extension
[1] Kaku, Michio. Visions. New York, New York: Doubleday, 1997. page 257.
[2] Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre/Ministry of Defense. "The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036". January 2007. page 80.
[3] Campbell, Thomas. "The Moral Imperative of Our Future Evolution". Available at <http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/camp.htm>
[4] Rogers, Lois. "Scientists find way to make us slaves". Times Online. October 17, 2004. Available at <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1313556,00.html>
[5] Ibid 2.
[6] National Intelligence Council/Central Intelligence Agency. "Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts". page 9. Available at <http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_global/globaltrend2015.pdf>