Comments on: Neurocosmetics as Faulty Data http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/01/neurocosmetics.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:31:00 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: Seth Finkelstein http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/01/neurocosmetics.html/comment-page-1#comment-45008 Seth Finkelstein Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:21:55 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2009/01/neurocosmetics-as-faulty-data.html#comment-45008 As the saying goes, prediction is difficult, especially about the future. But this post strikes me as veering between watered-down science-fiction for humanities types, and unwillingness to connect the existing use of, let us say, pervasive chemical alterations. As the saying goes, prediction is difficult, especially about the future.

But this post strikes me as veering between watered-down science-fiction for humanities types, and unwillingness to connect the existing use of, let us say, pervasive chemical alterations.

]]> By: A.J. Sutter http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/01/neurocosmetics.html/comment-page-1#comment-45007 A.J. Sutter Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:00:42 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2009/01/neurocosmetics-as-faulty-data.html#comment-45007 I confess to rooting for the "life on Mars" possibility (see R. Brooks's contribution). Yet while it would be a neat discovery, I don't think it will change everything. I agree that there's a strong technophilic bias in the responses -- a bias maybe implicit in the question itself and more likely so in the name "Edge" (whose likely provenance is "cutting ~" rather than, say, "~ of the abyss"). But even your flipped question shares this supposition. You're in abundant company: only 1 out of 151 people (R. Foreman) answered "nothing will change everything," even though that's clearly the right answer (though not necessarily for exactly the grounds he suggested.) As for techno-Whiggism in particular, you might be interested in David Edgerton's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Old-Technology-Global-History/dp/0195322835" rel="nofollow"><i>The Shock of the Old</i></a> (2006), which, despite some questionable attempts at revisionism about WWII (a minor part of the book), contains much interesting historical evidence to balance technophiles' exuberant predictions. "I shudder at such a world, but I doubt economic analysis can provide any basis for rejecting it" -- this comment also sounds wrong-way-to, as the Brits say. The weak rebuttal to your comment is that your concept of economics is too parochial (i.e., Anglo-Saxon). The stronger rebuttal is: why shouldn't the inability of [neoliberal] economic analysis to reject neurocosmetics be one more reason to reject [neoliberal, at least] economic analysis? Cheer up, re-frame and fight back! I confess to rooting for the “life on Mars” possibility (see R. Brooks’s contribution). Yet while it would be a neat discovery, I don’t think it will change everything. I agree that there’s a strong technophilic bias in the responses — a bias maybe implicit in the question itself and more likely so in the name “Edge” (whose likely provenance is “cutting ~” rather than, say, “~ of the abyss”). But even your flipped question shares this supposition. You’re in abundant company: only 1 out of 151 people (R. Foreman) answered “nothing will change everything,” even though that’s clearly the right answer (though not necessarily for exactly the grounds he suggested.) As for techno-Whiggism in particular, you might be interested in David Edgerton’s The Shock of the Old (2006), which, despite some questionable attempts at revisionism about WWII (a minor part of the book), contains much interesting historical evidence to balance technophiles’ exuberant predictions.

“I shudder at such a world, but I doubt economic analysis can provide any basis for rejecting it” — this comment also sounds wrong-way-to, as the Brits say. The weak rebuttal to your comment is that your concept of economics is too parochial (i.e., Anglo-Saxon). The stronger rebuttal is: why shouldn’t the inability of [neoliberal] economic analysis to reject neurocosmetics be one more reason to reject [neoliberal, at least] economic analysis? Cheer up, re-frame and fight back!

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