CROPfm Forum

The US needs to draft in psychopharmacologists, neuroscientists and even goateed cultural studies experts to fight 21 century wars that will be largely in the mind.

A report commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies predicts a freakish future of advances in neurosciences, and that the US will forget about the battle for the hearts and head straight for the mind.

Drugs that make soldiers want to fight. Robots linked directly to their controllers' brains. Lie-detecting scans administered to terrorist suspects as they cross U.S. borders.

These are just a few of the military uses imagined for cognitive science -- and if it's not yet certain whether the technologies will work, the military is certainly taking them very seriously.

Rapid advances in neuroscience could have a dramatic impact on national security and the way in which future wars are fought, US intelligence officials have been told.

In a report commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency, leading scientists were asked to examine how a greater understanding of the brain over the next 20 years is likely to drive the development of new medicines and technologies.

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Human Research and Engineering Directorate (HRED) is the principal Army organization for research and development (R&D) in the human dimension. HRED conducts a broad-based program of scientific research and technology directed toward optimizing Soldier performance and Soldier-machine interactions to maximize battlefield effectiveness. HRED also executes an analysis mission that provides the Army with human factors leadership to ensure that Soldier performance requirements are adequately considered in technology development and system design. HRED coordinates technologies within the Army, other services and their laboratories, industry, and academia to leverage basic and applied research opportunities for the benefit of the Army.

Committee on Military and Intelligence Methodology for Emergent Neruophysiological and Cognitive/Neural Research in the Next Two Decades, National Research Council

1931 Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.

Here's a mind-bending idea: The U.S. military is paying scientists to study ways to read people's thoughts. The hope is that the research could someday lead to a gadget capable of translating the thoughts of soldiers who suffered brain injuries in combat or even stroke patients in hospitals.

But the research also raises concerns that such mind-reading technology could be used to interrogate the enemy.

Nicht nur die Darpa, die Forschungsbehörde des Pentagon, will mit manchmal durchaus exotischen, jedenfalls gerne futuristischen Projekten technische Avantgarde sein und die militärische Überlegenheit der USA sichern, auf ähnlichen Spuren geht derzeit auch das [extern] U.S. Army Research Office und hat vier Millionen in einen Forschungsauftrag investiert, bei dem es letztlich darum geht, die Gedanken von Menschen lesen zu können.

Researchers get grant to develop communication system based on thoughts, not speech

A team of UC Irvine scientists has been awarded a $4 million grant from the U.S. Army Research Office to study the neuroscientific and signal-processing foundations of synthetic telepathy.

Is there an elite group of Black Ops agents able to wage clandestine war with the specially trained psychic power of their minds? Being able to strike and hit people, set them on fire, and blow up buildings with just the power of one's mind has long since been the staple of many a horror and science-fiction movie, but the reported power behind such abilities is apparently real. We do know as a fact of historical record, (from now declassified agency documents), that the U.S. government experimented with MK-Ultra mind control as well as Remote Viewing technologies. A portion of these experiements involved people using the power of their minds to move objects, as specialized systems of controlled mental projection and its ability to physically alter the material world were developed.