Word: biocontrol
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...biocontrol-turning men into robots [TIME, Oct. 15]-as expounded by Engineer Curtiss Schafer is the most chilling scientific vision in many a year. For man to be enslaved by electrical processes, his spirit and genius and upward thrust mechanically coerced and molded to the will of a malignant Grand Inquisitor-this is the final madness...
Electrical Engineer Schafer, who thinks it might be possible to graft an electronic gadget into a man's brain, states that "the controlled subjects would never be permitted to think as individuals [Oct. 15!" If that is biocontrol, it's nothing new. We've had that for years; it's called television...
...quite logical to believe that these two sciences will merge. Biocontrol may be denned as the control of physical movements, mental processes, emotional reactions and apparent sensory perceptions . . by means of bioelectrical signals which are transmitted and injected into the central nervous system of the subject...
...Elementary forms of biocontrol have already been demonstrated . . . Direct current of the required waveform and intensity passed through [a man's] head . . . changes his sense of balance, and he leans to one side . . . Other experimenters have shown that rats and dogs may be made to feel hungry just after eating, or afraid when they had nothing to fear, simply by injecting the appropriate neural currents into the central nervous system of the animal...
Cheapest Machine. "The ultimate achievement of biocontrol," says Engineer Schafer, "may be the control of man himself . . . Enslavement could be imposed upon the vanquished as a condition of peace, or through the threat of hydrogen bombing. Biocontrol could make this enslavement complete and final, for the controlled subjects would never be permitted to think as individuals. A few months after birth, a surgeon would equip each child with a socket mounted under the scalp and electrodes reaching selected areas of brain tissue. A year or two later, a miniature radio receiver and antenna would be plugged into the socket. From...