The Good News Thread

Holy shit…

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Man, that’s freak!
Awesome, but still freak!

This basically means that telepathy will be possible when they develop this technology further.

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“…devices wired directly to the brain could make it hard for people to separate private thoughts from those they choose to make public…”

This is interesting. I imagine that if our private thoughts were visible, most if us would look like raving lunatics.

I’m thinking this could be resolved with a mute button maybe?

The user could simply think BRAVO ON or BRAVO OFF

Still looking for “mute all.” :rofl:

Guy

Advanced meditation is necessary for that. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I’ve tried to keep on top of this sort of technology (as a matter of professional interest) and it occurs to me that genuine “lie detectors” are already practically feasible. It’s only a matter of time before they’re commercially available and will be deployed to make the world even shittier than it already is.

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Look at the bright side. Everybody will just have to start telling (and thinking) the truth. :grin:

Except the people who don’t want to.

There was a story I read years ago (IIRC it was by Carl Sagan, but I can’t find any mention of it online) in which someone invents a lie detector that is immediately used to revolutionize both politics and the justice system. My prediction is that a highly reliable lie detector is 5-15 years away, and those two areas of life will be completely untouched by its existence.

?

Don’t think so. I was quite young at the time so it must have been published in the late 70s or 80s.

I’m guessing there are dozens of books using the same trope :slight_smile:

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Sounds like we all better hurry up and get our affairs in order!

EDIT : oops, sorry. I just realised this is supposed to be the Good News Thread :blush:

FIFY.

Problem is, how do you deal with the level of belief in the statement? A McDonald’s cashier could tell you they’re working at a successful multinational restaurant chain, for instance. Or somebody who got high, drove a car and killed pedestrians claiming in good faith that “I didn’t run over that guy, Jesus took the wheel and ran over him!”

TBH I think lie detectors will be used by governments to train ordinary people to invent make-believe worlds for themselves, ie., as tools of coercion. But if we assume (for example) that they are used in more sensible ways - perhaps to ensure that more guilty people are sentenced and that more innocent people walk free - I don’t think belief in one’s own lies is a big factor.

The law hinges mostly upon what happened, and to a lesser extent why it happened. It’s true that inveterate liars pretty much believe their own lies and have constructed elaborate mental representations of those lies. But somewhere inside their heads is a recollection of The Truth, and it should be possible to elicit those memories with skilled questioning. One technique is to get people to repeat segments of their story out-of-order (or backwards); it is very hard to do this with a falsehood, even a carefully-constructed one. Brain activity will, I’m absolutely certain, be measurably different. The point here is that it is not necessary to actually “read back” the true facts of the event from brain activity. It’s enough to know that the person is lying.

It would probably work less well when it comes to mens rea. Psychopaths genuinely believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong, and their mental processes will be absolutely consistent with that. However it may not matter: psychopaths who end up in court have usually committed such egregious crimes that simply knowing the facts will be enough to convict them.

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Good guys helping out seniors in Keelung:

Guy

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Awesome guy on twitter William Yang (who has provided very helpful updates on the COVID situation in Taiwan) has received some nice recognition for his work as journalist.

Guy

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