Pleasure vs. pain in the programmed society

by Jon Rappoport

January 25, 2015

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“In experiments on mice, scientists rewired the circuits of the brain and changed the animals’ bad memories into good ones…The researchers said they were able to do the opposite as well—change a pleasurable memory in mice into one associated with fear.” (Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, 8/27/14)

Aldous Huxley once wrote to George Orwell:

“[The world’s rulers’] lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World.”

Brain researchers believe they have the future of the world in their hands. For example, they assume that one day, they will be able to turn on or turn off circuits that induce pleasure and pain in humans. Easily, reliably, precisely.

If humans seek to find pleasure and avoid pain, or if they pursue goals that deliver pleasure as a side effect…why wait? Why go through the process of striving at all? Why not cut to the bottom line immediately and experience pleasure?

In an age where instant reward, entitlement, flickering attention, and entertainment are paramount, why not stimulate the brain and give people what they want?

Work is the middle-man. Eliminate it. The interval between desire and fulfillment is long. Erase it.

In the process, simplify human aspirations. Reduce them to a lowest common denominator. Assume that what a Tesla, a Rembrandt, a Beethoven achieved was unnecessarily complicated—the “same result” could have been handed to them on a silver platter.

Individual triumph? An outmoded concept. And why should one person accomplish more than another? It’s victimization. A cardinal sin.

If a thousand robots working in a factory can turn out more cars per day than their human counterparts, thus alleviating the stress of labor, then by analogy, delivering pleasure to a population through drugs or electromagnetic stimulation, bypassing the need for work, is a worthy objective.

These are the arguments, and a significant and growing percentage of the human race would find them persuasive and attractive.

“I’m bored (tired, frustrated, unhappy, confused). Give me pleasure. Now.”

Kent Berridge, PhD, at the University of Michigan Affective & Biopsychology Lab, writes (“Hedonic hotspots of ‘Liking’ — The brain’s pleasure gloss”):

“Pleasure arises within the brain. Sweetness or other natural pleasures are mere sensations as they enter the brain, and brain systems must actively paint the pleasure onto sensation to generate a ‘liking’ reaction — as a sort of pleasure gloss or varnish. Our lab has discovered brain generators of sensory pleasure, in the form of anatomical ‘hedonic hotspots’ in the brain, which use neurochemcal signals [to] paint intense pleasure on sensation, embedded within larger hedonic circuits. It is important to identify such pleasure-causing brain hedonic hotspots, neurochemicals and circuits, in order to identify true mechanisms of pleasure. The need to find true pleasure generators is especially pressing because hedonic circuit dysfunctions may underlie mood disorders and related clinical disorders, and because several other brain candidates once thought to mediate pleasure are now increasingly recognized to not cause pleasure after all (e.g., dopamine, electrical brain stimulation). Therefore we aim to find true causes and mechanisms in the brain for pleasure.”

Thousands of brain researchers all over the world believe they are on the road to curing “mood disorders.” But the big picture is quite different. It involves the shaping of society.

The individual, stripped of goals, vision, imagination, and creative force drops into a slow-motion vortex of despair; and painting a pleasure-gloss on his interior sensations is no cure.

It’s reduction.

Brain research has come a long way since Pavlov, but the basic formula is still the same: stimulate a reaction.


Humans brought to a trough of “sweetness” and drinking from it all at once may initiate a pleasant scene; but at what price?

Tesla is just a little boy with wild ideas and a talent for mechanics, and he is offending other little boys who can’t approach his insight; so he must be cured of his disorder. To do that, he’s given a few jolts of precisely directed pleasure-stim, and he forgets. He forgets what he is and what he can do.

He’s sacrificed on the collective altar.

The pleasure dome expands. People are happy.

The level of happiness is not important. It only matters that people will accept the degree of pleasure they are afforded. They will come to view it as the fulfillment of what is possible.

So it rests with the individual to become free, powerful, and creative. No one else is going to deliver that gift.

Up the road toward the Brave New World, pleasure will be counted as a fundamental sacrament underlying the Bill of Rights. “Everyone deserves it.”

In whatever form the technology can deliver it, it will be given.

Until something untoward happens.

Below the level of consciousness, a massive rebellion will be brewing and boiling. People, like it or not, will experience waves of repressed energy they can’t explain or identify.

The inchoate desire to be what they actually are will force its way to the surface and shake the world.

The pleasure dome will shatter and fall into the sea.

Beyond the reworked and cauterized brain, like a memory, the fires of consciousness will return.

The technocrats will take to the hills.

Or: knowing what the utopian program is—and what we are—we can refuse the program now.


The Matrix Revealed

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Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

18 comments on “Pleasure vs. pain in the programmed society

  1. Fat Elvis says:

    The agent returned to a familiar landscape with a smirk. As a humble emissary of the Readiness, he’d been here many times before..

    “Stand back Jon. The Need has determined I squirt rainbow love from my pores. I’d hate to get any on ya.”

    The agent sighed with concern. He wondered aloud how much compromise the Readiness could take before it too, would separate into starchy little symbols in a bowl of soup.

  2. From Québec says:

    Aldous Huxley and George Orwell were both socialists.
    I hate to tell you that, but leftists are totalitarian control freaks.

    They say their goal is to make people happy and equal. A herd of zombies in full optimist delirium.

    You remember that song? “Everything is awesome” Everything is cool when you’re part of a team.”

    But unfortunately, they always end up making a much more miserable world, where there are no choice, no freedoms… just slavery.

    It’s like if they would say: Oh, this read rose is much more prettier than this yellow tulip. We cannot tolerate that. Let’s ask Monsanto to create seeds that will make every flower on this earth exactlly the same.

    What a boring and devastating world it would be.

  3. procomptor says:

    Good account of today’s reality verses yesterdays imagination Jon. As a thermal dynamics engineer and no longer having the time to sit around and play video games I recognize the truth in what you are saying here.

    I have watched my children and others following myself into the world of computers fall into this imaginary trap of “feel good when needed” through computer false reality. Virtual reality whereas a person can live the life one can only dream of in real reality is highly tempting and once there highly addictive. If you are in denial of this then look around while shopping, in a park, at an airport or just about anywhere today that people exist.

    I design and build high end cooling systems that I incorporate into the highest level desktops and laptops. My purpose for this is to give other engineers, CAD programmers and drafters the ability to create at a higher level. More often than not it is gamer’s that buy my products and I get to see the addiction first hand. They are inpatient to get their product and generally spend more than they can afford. The addiction is very similar to that of a drug addict as I had experienced first hand in the 70’s.

    It is the addiction to gaming that pushed me into engineering better cooling systems to allow greater CPU and GPU speeds to accomplish faster game play. When I finally had to choose where to put my time in order to either become a money making game champion or run a lucrative computer business the addiction to game play took a back seat and slowly faded away. I can honestly say I made the right choice and can now look back to see the mistakes I made that nearly cost me my dream of becoming an engineer.

    After the collapse of my 32 year marriage and the loss of most friends due at least in part to the direction I decided to take my life I can only say that I chose reality over virtual reality. With these changes I started seeing 9/11, FEMA camps and planet X. I also regained my ability to see’ again for the Lord and have helped many to see the truth that is now getting buried under lies generated by the dark forces who wish to control everyone through brainwashing and ultimately complete mental control of the masses.

    No matter what your beliefs God gave everyone the ability to see the difference between lies and truth. He also tattooed the basic laws (ten commandments if you like) on the butts of every new born child living here on Mother Earth! Think I am a religious nut? I have not attended church in 30 years and am active within atheist, Catholic, Christian and Jewish groups. The story now unfolding and what is coming is the same in every group I belong to. People have been purposely put to sleep by the government controlled media. Pause some of the commercials and read what is being hidden inside as I had done. I had also experimented with frequency shifting in my early years of electronics and discovered as John Hutchinson did that they are key to humans and material objects at least in the dimension people on earth live in. The powers that will be all know about this and use it to their advantage more and more every day.

    Seems like the smarter I get the more it takes me back to ancient times and the struggle between goods and evil. For all our intelligence and marvelous new creations we simply haven’t gone very far in figuring out how to make life fair to every child, man and woman in order to promote only good without the underlying evil. What a shame as I truly believe mankind is running out of time very quickly now.

    Great Love and Hope through Lord and/or the universal Light of Knowledge. Bless all of you…..mike

    • BDev says:

      Religion is another level of distraction from reality, Mike. Keep pushing yourself to go further. Many amazing and majestic experiences await.

      • Deanna Clark says:

        As a Christian I’ve watched so many spend years…decades…obsessing over the 3rd Secret of Fatima or spirituality of all kinds mostly narcissistic. The simply Christian life of the Golden Rule and faith in the Father’s love doesn’t sell books. Imagine the wasted lives..the good that could have been done.

    • denisemward says:

      Frequency shifting? This documentary posits some interesting answers to the way the pyramids were built. They were built on limestone aquifers which would fill with the rising Nile and flow through the small channels in the limestone to generate electricity and then feed into the corridor system in the pyramid emitting energy. It’s a very interesting idea using the naturally occurring features of nature to generate energy. It’s a long documentary but very interesting. http://www.personalgrowthcourses.net/video/health/aids_origin_polio_vaccine_cbc

  4. ozziethinker says:

    Sadly, Jon, the scientists don’t need to do anything. That is not the problem.

    Let us take your blog; commenters are divided into two parts.

    There are those that gloat and those that whine.

    The gloaters say things like, “I live on unspoilt land free of pollution” or “I take colloidal silver for all my maladies”.

    Whiners wallow in self-pity of either themselves or close family members. They don’t really care about anything beyond that.

    Both types are absolutely entrenched in the system. They all vote, vigorously follow laws, do as they are told, support the banking commerce system to the hilt and sometimes are even “patriots”.

    Occasionally someone sits on the fence, but mostly I see gloaters or whiners.

    In my book series, I identify human are like switches. The “on” “off” has multiple variables. Let’s take expression as the example.

    There are those for “freedom of speech” and those for “censorship”. The freedom of speech rabble only allow, from the spectrum, “affirming views” which, in a sense, is muted censorship.

    The issue always has been bottom up. People are selfish, hate to contribute (without “winning”) and therefore build systems geared to ostracising strangers (who ironically can become “commercial friends”). Your governments have you by the “short and curlies” because of “you” and not because of “them”.

    One in a million is a REAL REBEL. Game lost, Jon.

    Best
    OT

  5. mary says:

    I am not sure what OT [@ozziethinker] means by game lost, but if you mean humanity is losing and the ptb are winning I do not see that. I believe we have reached the point where we have enough awakened people for a change to take place. I understand many are still heavily programmed, but I believe when the final “awakening event” happens, whatever that will be, millions are awake enough to respond. It is all about our conscience, as people like Jon and others have continually planted seeds and they have blossomed in our conscience connected field. to me, we all, who are awake and able to fight past the programming, are contributing to humanity getting “free”…What we all can do is “see the awakening, believe it, and refuse in our conscience to allow “them” to win..I understand many will not be able to handle it, but many will be able to. Its all about our connected conscience field, as they poison it, many of us continually try to undo it…all of us need to continually in our connected field of conscience fight it. Thank you Jon for all you do for humanity

    • From Québec says:

      I agree with you Mary. Even though there are still a lot of people who are dumbdown like I showed in the video below, there is a wide awakening taking place. And we don’t need the majority to win. All we need are couragous persistant dedicated people who will fight till they win this war.

    • ozziethinker says:

      Waffle and action are the same after all…..

      “Eyes wide shut”

  6. From Québec says:

    “Up the road toward the Brave New World, pleasure will be counted as a fundamental sacrament underlying the Bill of Rights. “Everyone deserves it.”

    —————-

    Speaking of the Bills of Rights… see this video:

    Oh boy! We have a long way to go.

    Video: Americans Want Obama to Repeal the Bill of Rights

    http://www.infowars.com/video-americans-want-obama-to-repeal-the-bill-of-rights/

  7. Deanna Clark says:

    I hope and believe there will be a great turning away from all this. People will begin to spend more time sitting outside with a cuppa coffee and doing a crossword, listening to birds and playing with pets. Imagine an amazing wake up from all this slavery…seeing creation with fresh eyes. These gadgets are doomed…they are made by slaves for slaves. We have more in common with the earthworms under our feet than all of these machines.

  8. cory says:

    There is a gentleman that is developing more intensive virtual reality gaming as we speak and his goal is to create a world where all pleasure is derived from virtual gaming, I kid you not. He is already on the way to his goal and yes he is already the head of a large profitable company. He thinks it’s a great future for all of mankind. I think to sit in a room with virtual reality glasses on all day is boring. But he assures us all that we will have all the feelings and smells and sights of reality in these virtual games, it will be as real as if we are actually living the game. So of course why would anyone strive to do or be anything if they can do it all in a game and feel like they are actually living their dreams with little to no effort on their part. I think there will also be a form of some kind of “downloading” of additional information while the mind is in the gaming state, added later if not initially in the games. If the television can put a person into a form of hypnosis to program a person to believe in an idea or buy a product as I have read about many times, then why not in virtual gaming. I think that the new virtual reality gaming which we all know is the technology sold as a “toy to play with at home ” by families mind you, is the one to pay attention to. It will be the largest hypnosis of the human mind for ALL age groups that humanity has ever experienced in this time period of human recorded history. It is a frightening thought, the only way to avoid it will be to not play the games. But I think it will be difficult to get the kids who already play the games (as well as the adults who use the games to find relief and pleasure from their daily grind) to not play these games. All things can be used for good of course, but lately things are being disguised as being good for us all, and in reality they are all about control of the human body and mind.

  9. brad says:

    Seems to me there must be an underlying fundamental essence, of pleasure in this example, that our brain physiology, or even our state of consciousness, organizes around, connects with and/or reacts to; something that supersedes brain or even consciousness. Otherwise, how would our physiology, or metaphysical consciousness, ‘know’ what it’s trying to achieve? ‘Science’ might have success stimulating pleasure responses of some kind, but it would certainly fall short of achieving a deep, natural, continuously self-sustaining state of pleasure (or sense of well-being, or equanimity, or happiness, etc.).

    Hopefully it won’t come to the Brave-New-World-necessitating-a-rebellion scenario, but, the way things are headed, that certainly could end up being the case.

  10. Deanna Clark says:

    This is interesting. You know, religion and philosophy and principles such as “love”only exist at all in effective activity. What we’re really discussing is the killing of human life by mesmerization. Even Christianity is being undermined with contemplation and ‘spirituality’ that never takes the thermometer out of the mouth…always contemplating the old navel like the old jokes about it.

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