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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson
 |
| Betrization | ||
| An in utero method of reducing human aggression. |
In the novel, a future society is made easier to govern by reducing the level of aggression in people before they are born.
| Betrization acted on the developing prosencephalon at an early stage in life by means of a group of proteolytic enzymes. The effects were selective: the reduction of aggressive impulses by 80 to 88 percent in comparison with the nonbetrizated; the elimination of the formation of associative links between acts of aggression and the sphere of positive feelings; a general 87-percent reduction in the possibility of accepting personal risk in life.
Betrization causes the disappearance of aggression through the complete absence of command, and not by inhibition. |
| Technovelgy from Return from the Stars,
by Stanislaw Lem. Published by Not known in 1961 Additional resources -
|
Interestingly, this technique also resulted in a society that lacked true innovation and free thinking.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Return from the Stars
More Ideas
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Tech news articles related to Return from the Stars
Tech news articles related to works by Stanislaw Lem
Betrization-related
news articles:
- Moral Performance Enhancement
| Drug To Regenerate Teeth In Humans |
| Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI |
| Brainoware Reservoir Computation Of Biological Neural Networks |
| Forward CarePod The AI Doctor's Office |
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
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'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
