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The Battle for Your Brain

Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology

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The Battle for Your Brain

By: Nita A. Farahany
Narrated by: Rachel Perry
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About this listen

A new dawn of brain tracking and hacking is coming. Will you be prepared for what comes next?

Imagine a world where your brain can be interrogated to learn your political beliefs, your thoughts can be used as evidence of a crime, and your own feelings can be held against you. A world where people who suffer from epilepsy receive alerts moments before a seizure, and the average person can peer into their own mind to eliminate painful memories or cure addictions.

Neuroscience has already made all of this possible today, and neurotechnology will soon become the “universal controller” for all of our interactions with technology. This can benefit humanity immensely, but without safeguards, it can seriously threaten our fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom of thought, and self-determination.

From one of the world’s foremost experts on the ethics of neuroscience, The Battle for Your Brain offers a path forward to navigate the complex legal and ethical dilemmas that will fundamentally impact our freedom to understand, shape, and define ourselves.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

History & Culture Science Technology & Society Technology Inspiring Human Brain Human Rights
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What a superb and prescient listen. It’s both a warning and an education about what exists and is likely to emerge. I read and listen to a lot of these types of books and there is so much new material in this. Not the same old 10 psychology experiments performed on WEIRD under grads. It worth a note about the narrator too. First class. She knows how to perform the meaning behind the words.

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A very informative book and truly concerning as to how much society has developed from the collecting and selling of individuals personal data to interpreting and commodifying cognitive thinking, (our thoughts being cognitive capital).

The question of self determination being compared to the right to diminish ones own brain alongside arguments of John Stuart Mills, analogies of addiction, ptsd and motorcycle helmet use really push forward the point that the uses of advances of neurotechnology currently risk diminishing individual self determination/autonomy, especially with the targeted attempts to control what is viewed hooking individuals where our attention is the currency.

The arguments of self interest blurring with government interference due to the perception of the government upholding one’s interest is a worrying observation for which consequences can already be seen.

A very fascinating read I enjoyed learning about the US and Chinese approaches, the ways in which one can ‘brake’ their own brain, and the effects of deep brain stimulation. I like the tying in of Voldemorts use of the cruciatis curse on Harry Potter to explain the feared possibilities of losing our minds and government weaponisation of cognitive control.

This book reaffirms the need for balancing the uses of technology as a tool, incorporating ethics guard rails and the need to regulate not only big tech companies but to place limits on the data business model to stop the progression of making our thoughts the new currency such as with some brands using audio/visuals keys to lead to dream synchronicity, it endangers our fundamental freedoms with the limits of individuality being restricted and the theory of mind exploited/manipulated.

The new data is cognitive capital

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