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"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein
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Analogue Treatment |
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Hypnotic drug treatment that normalizes behavior in humans. |
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I'm immune to analogue treatment. I didn't know it
for sure till I was ten, but I think
I was born that way. From
seven on, I remember the other
kids talking about their Guardians, and me pretending I had
one, too. You know how kids
are — anything to be part of
the gang.
"But for a long time, years, I
wasn't certain whether everyone
else was pretending like me, or
whether I really was the only one
without an invisible Guardian
to talk to. I was pretty sure the
kids were lying when they said
they could see theirs, but whether
they were there at all or not was
another question...
"When I was ten, I stole some-
thing... Funny, I was halfway
out before it struck me that I'd
just proved I had no Guardian.
"I had sense enough, thank
God, to burn that book after I'd
finished reading it. If I hadn't,
I don't suppose I would have
lived to grow up."
"Should think not" Wolfert
said, his eyes fixed on Falk, alert,
wary. "One man without any
control could turn the whole
applecart over. But I thought
immunity was theoretically impossible."
"I've thought about that a good
deal. According to classic psychology, it is. I'm not unusually
resistant to hypnotic drugs; I
go under all right. But the censor
mechanism just doesn't respond.
I've had the notion that I may be
a mutation, developed in response to the analogue treatment
as an anti-survival factor. But I
don't know. As far as I've ever
been able to find out, there are no
more like me." |
Technovelgy from Ticket to Anywhere,
by Damon Knight.
Published by Galaxy Magazine in 1952
Additional resources -
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This treatment has been applied to everyone:
"There are fewer and fewer
people who have to be put away
in madhouses — not because of
any improvement in therapy, but
because the analogue techniques
are getting better and better. The
guy who would have been hopelessly insane fifty years ago now
has a little man inside his head,
controlling him, making him act
normal. On the outside, he is
normal; inside, he's a raving mad-
man. Worse still, the guy who
would have been just a little bit
cracked, fifty years ago — and
gotten treatment for it — is now
just as mad as the first guy. It
doesn't matter any more. We
could all be maniacs and the
world would go on just as before."
Wolfert grimaced wryly. "Well?
It's a peaceful world, anyhow."
"Sure," said Falk. "No war or
possibility of war, no murders,
no theft, no crime at all. That's
because every one of them has a
policeman inside his skull.
Compare to the control helmet from Easy Money (1938) by Edmond Hamilton, the Methuen Treatment from The Exalted (1940) by L. Sprague de Camp and CAN-D from The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) by Philip K. Dick.
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