Pleasure vs. pain in the programmed society

by Jon Rappoport

March 11, 2019

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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.

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 emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine.

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

  1. truth1 says:

    Well, the future as I see it, based upon a cosmic court dispute over who is right about these human creatures placed upon the earth and whether the accused/defendent and maker/designer of the said human creatures is unfairly restricting the access of other spirit beings to these earthly creatures, is to test the creatures (us) and as to whether the intentions and motivations of the said maker of all things, are pure and reasonable. Hence the Plaintiiff/disgruntled son, Satan et al wants a shot at testing us humans for fitness and intentions/motivations and worthiness of being spared the judgment that naturally follows those who disobey their maker/designer after having the chance to choose either the plaintiff Satan et al or the Defendent creator, a one Jehovah et al.

    So it might seem bleek but the trial/contest will keep the fight fair. the Plaintiff will use lots of intimidation and threats; one of those being to erase our heads or faculties. The Defendent will not allow the trial/testing to be that severe. Unlike the maniacal Plaintiff, who if he had his way, would kill us all. He will get to kill many, but not all. Who gets killed or not, is enitrely up to each individual. You can do things the defendent’s way, while there is no compulsion to do so, unless you want to escape death forever, or you can join in with the plaintiff who was failed to produce meaningful evidence in the supernatural court of law operating in the paranormal arena.

    So while there seem to be some really bad things coming, the Defendent has insisted that the whole earth be brought together to choose wither one side or the other. the Plaintiff is only allowed to test up to a certain point before everyone must choose either 1 side or the other. the contrast will be very obvious. Choose evil or choose benevolence and that choice should be obvious. Good luck. I have filled out an absentee voting ballot already. I’ve seen enough to choose. How about you, all? Seen enough? Had enough? How much more do you need? Choose wisely!

  2. petergrafstrm says:

    “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.”
    One day.. jon is too smart not to know that this was already carried out in the 1960s.
    But the above when used in a less conspicious manner, ie the stimulus is barely noticeable, is a way of steering a targeted persons thoughts without the target suspecting any exterior cause, but instead made to believe it was the targets own thoughts which after reflection led the target to discard or embrace a certain part of the text. In the case of discarding an idea the author would erase and alter the text in appearance out of the authors own free will. This is obviously wellsuited for a context when an author is writing on a computer keyboard and a spook has realtime access to that writing.
    When there is no keyboard and the target is speaking to someone it is harder, but with the current development of AI, that difference will gradually vanish. There is no obvious remedy since we all rely on our (apparent) free will. If we no longer trust it, it will be a very uncomfortable situation. Since the method requires wireless cybernetic control, people would resort to isolate themselves from being reachable by such means.

  3. From Quebec says:

    How about a new team of scientists that could find a way to rewire the circuits of the brain of politicians and changed those corrupted idiots into brilliant honest people. …

    Problem solved!

  4. Erika says:

    i believe we are in part already soaking in it.

    I find myself getting ticked off by unspoken assumptions i hear in conversations i have with others. Most of these assumptions are collectivist in nature.

    Among them are
    Phrases like “paying back to society..* assumes you are born owing it.
    The belief that somehow you OWE the economy your labor.
    You must have children or you are selfish because it benefits the statists who OWN your children…and covet their future labor.
    The idea that YOUR TIME is public property.

    And most onerous that MONEY is worth more than YOUR TIME OR HEALTH..or sometimes that MONEY Is an equal exchange for your time (LIFE)

    Interestingly the ESTABLISHMENT determines VALUE and their bean counters earn more than someone who cares for others (think hospice workers, or childcare).

    Inventors almost always die BROKE having had their inventions stolen by large corporations who can engage the pay to play “justice” system.

    We do not have a capitalist society…it is not weighted to what serves humanity but what serves the large corporations.

    I was listening to the Fed chairman the other day and he was upset at the down tick in participation in the labor market despite the economy being “very good”.
    The job market is HOW they control you…they control your time/life

    They have brainwashed Americans to think that possessions and money are more important than their souls.

    Welcome to the new soul free society.

    • truth1 says:

      twas a very thoughtful intelligent comment. I give it 5 *s

    • petergrafstrm says:

      “We do not have a capitalist society..”
      True, you have an oligarchy who hates competition and who cleverly created and sponsored collectivist ideas to fight the middle class in a two-pronged operation. Both from above and from below. The leftists are still to grasp that concept and stop embracing the role of useful idiots.

      • Being the Russian bot that you are, bound and determined to undermine the morality, undermine the glue that whole America together…bought and paid for by some hacking institution. 

        I corrected you before…oligarchy is a solely Russian term. As one of their bots, it is not unusual that you use the wrong terms in discussion, such language… if you are going to come over here and piss in pool, at least get the verbage right.

        The U.S. is not an oligarchy…an oligarchy is a government run by a few corrupt and selfish…

        The United States government is a federal republic consisting of 50 some odd states, a federal district and self-governing districts and island possessions. It is three branches of government; legislative, executive and judicial. It is enabled by both a congress and a senate which advises…that all filters down to the state level which encompasses many government bureaucracies and institutions all run by many tens of thousands of individuals and civil servants.

        Freedom reigns here, whereas an oligarchy is exactly what runs the Kremlin and Russian Federation. Which in fact is the most perfect example of an oligarchy. 

        • petergrafstrm says:

          It’s from greek and means rule by the few, doesnt have to be formal government. The Magna Charta which caused England to be dragged into centuries of bloody feuds was in a sense an oligarchic arrangement so they could start private wars.
          It wasnt what people have been taught, appart from some nicesounding catchphrases.
          The freedom your oligarchs give you is to prevent a healthy life so millions of people actually die from medication. Due to the snake oil salesmen. It is the result of the Rockefellers lifelong efforts to gain more and more power.
          I doubt that Russia needs ‘bots’ since the truth is on their side. Any decent human being can do the job. If they would together military units they wouldnt have to he conmen like the Us/Uk military tesms who troll the web.
          I dont think you are genuine yourself btw. You are putting up some act I think.

          • Listen stupid, its Magna Carta, not Magna Charta, the great rule of law the charter of liberties, freedoms, is a document that set the basis for future common law.

            It was not an Oligarchic” arrangement to start private wars, it was a charter of rights agreed upon by the unpopular John of England, an honest leader whom repelled the upstart and rebellious barons —  it set guideline for feudal payments to the crown. It set down jurisdictional boundaries of ownership. It protected the common people in those lands owned by barons. It set up a council to oversee such matters of such and an agreement. In fact it brought peace, until a latter french insurgency.

            Freedom is not given here like your home country, it is a right of every citizen to be free.

            They are not educating you trolls enough, you bark on with same old diatribe about the U.S. and UK and the west and your left-wing nut ideas and accusations…but in the end you despise us because we are free.

            The Kremlin and truth is an oxymoron, a kleptocratic oxymoron…and you are just a run of the mill moron. Now go away.

          • petergrafstrm says:

            You foulmouthed creep. Ok when I wrote the previous comment I checked the spelling and found this item
            http://www.magna-charta.org
            Now I noted that it wasnt the english one from the 1200s
            So wrong spelling. Big deal.
            And you just quoted the version for the plebs where the 61st item isnt explained. You are supposed to swallow all those lofty phrases.
            The 61st when read till you have understood it is what meant that they the barons~oligarchs were now allowed to start private wars and that is what happened. But it sometimes takes a lawyer to sift out what such a text means so it may not be immediately apparent to us laymen

            Your reference to Kreml only goes to show that you are some mediocre spook. Being in denial about the corporate and financial power cartels which means the Us form of capitalism is monopoly capitalism. Do you believe Apple started in a garage? And that microsoft was the result of individual enterpreneurship? Thats all for public consumption but in reality they just create an illusion to hide that it is just your oligarchy which uses the advantages obtained from taxpayerfunded military industrial complex output, so the illusion of the Us being truly capitalist may be maintained.

    • “Inventors almost always die BROKE […]”

      Well there goes entrepeneurship, might as well cut our own throats.

      “We do not have a capitalist society…”

      What do you call it then when I am able to start a small business, and in the process of growing become a company and eventually with enough hard work, a corporation.

      “The job market is HOW they control you…”

      And here I though I was investing my time into something that gained a return in wages/money and position.

      Too many Russians here today…

      Do you know that you have grown up to become a cynic like Petergrafstrm, do you realize that what you say is solely collectivist idealogy. They are the only ones baking out these refrains Erika?

      • Erika says:

        Not a Russian….i actually had the misfortune to spend 30 years watching the federal government in washington DC where both of my parents worked for federal government.
        Seeing the corruption of the workings of that government is what led to my contempt..

        BTW ARISTOTLE was the one who coined the termoligarchy..was he Russian too?

        The other term for it is plutocracy.

        Federal government has been taken over BY corporate interests to serve corporate interests. ( i am not sure it ever actually represented the people, considering how the federal government used the national guard to murder striking coal workers in the before time, i think it has always been a plutocracy)
        What we have is crony capiitalism (or vulture capitalism if you prefer)not “free market” capitalism.

        I am sick and tired of my tax dollars being raided to line the pockets of big business.

        Recently in my state, they raided and stripped the education fund to give a huge tax break to a military industrial complex corporation- then did an end run around the populace- raising land taxes across the board to make up the shortfall.
        I have been watching this kind of nonsense go on for too long.

        That and watching country after country invaded using tax dollars while we get austerity measures at home.

        The federal government DOES NOT in any way shape or form actually represent the will of the people…it does however represent big business.
        Do go to a search engine and find the study shhowing that the US is an OLIGARCHY for yourself.
        https://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4

        https://youtu.be/T6a87L_f7js

        As for employment- back when the industrial revolution was getting seriously underway, the working class KNEW that wage work was demeaning and not an equal exchange. They deeply resented it. It has taken a century of indoctrination in public school to make people think this is a natural thing.

        Most od us would prefer self suficiency and freedom.

      • Erika says:

        Secondly read what Jefferson and Lincoln actually thought about wage labour (employment).
        You must have a fairly slim grasp of history.
        https://elpidiovaldes.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/wage-slavery-a-quick-history/

        Apparently you do not even know what collectivism is…and confuse a critique of RENTING ONESELF OUT like Chattel with collectivism.
        Not owning your own time is a form of collectivism
        Better to own the means of production and the fruits of that production, selling them then to sell yourself like a prostitute.

        • truth1 says:

          “Better to own the means of production and the fruits of that production, selling them then to sell yourself like a prostitute.” Well said, Erika. Land ownership without property taxes, is the only possible freedom allowing for self sufficiency relatively speaking among a community of the same. This accomplishes a sort of equality that the left is always harping on, when they really mean just the opposite.

          • Erika says:

            Agree, actual land ownership, not renting from the government. (eleanor Roosevelt boasted that they were eliminating private property)
            They were considering such a thing in Indiana and Ohio..

            On top of that we need our own currency, preferably diverse currencies.Barter may be the only way though to stop the manipulators. I know of s3veral people who started upa barter ring but were shut down by the corrupt FBI.The idea is that if federal reserve notes are not changing hands, it can’t be taxed.

            We have a set of aristocrats called CORPORATIONS with special rights and privileges under law, using the government to shut down innovation and to steal money to line their pockets.
            I have often wondered if CORPORATION was not the image of the beast..and the US in fact the revived Roman Empire. If either one of us did what a corporation does, and ran our lives solely to benefit ourselves and garner profit, regardless of the cost to others…we would be sitting in jail.

            I find it fascinating that Americans have to lie to themselves about how “free” they are.
            The truth is Americans are chattel, we are livestock.
            When the government can coerce you to vaccinate your child, when they can force propaganda down their throat in public schools, when you are not free to enjoy the fruits of your labor without having the government mafia dictate what you are allowed to keep- you are not free, but less than a serf, because at least serfs had some right to the land.

            Probably preaching to the choir..

          • truth1 says:

            Well, I love the idea of our own currency. But I see it as the most out of reach option. At least with arable land, we would not be at the mercy of ruthless employers. I would love to see an end to Encyclopedia sized building codes. If I can live happily in an 8 by 16 shed then why tons of buidling requirements that do not even allow residence for double that. What good is land when you can’t do anything you might want to do on it. Your neighbors get to boss you around. In fact, in San Fran, buidling codes are the mean to keep the poor/Chinese out of the sight of the rich.
            the process of “Dynastic Inheritance,” whereby landlords evict residents, renovate and jack the rents to that only the young of the rich can afford them. Building codes drive prices thru the roof. Land must not have any rules or regulations that effectively deny the use of the land.
            So I would settle for a modest victory, but I need not worry. Its all a fairly tale. I is and be a slave on the plantation.Now I guts to finish my quota of cotton or I be gettin a good whupping by the boss.

          • truth1 says:

            Well, preaching to the choir is good. No one else wants to hear what we say. at least we each know that there is at least on other who “sees” and “knows.” and harsh reality will be coming to all, sooner or later. For us, its already here. We get it.

  5. Jon

    Good article, but I think Huxley/Orwell and others of that genre have done more to construct plans for as protest against the insane ambitions of the so-called “New World Order”.

    On the subject of construction, I wrote this recently

    https://exopolitician.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/constructive-secrets-of-the-great-pyramid-of-giza/

    You also singled out Tesla, Rembrandt and Beethoven, but I don’t agree with that synopsis. “They” are fine with geniuses. All they want is productivity to be in a constant, measurable “straight line”. And that’s what’s impossible. Ask any genius. That’s why the “powers” are completely mad!

    Best
    OT

  6. petergrafstrm says:

    Michael Burns
    Here an extract from the magna carta clause 61
    “..if we, or our Justiciary, or our bailiffs, or any of our officers, shall have injured any one in any thing, or shall have violated any article of the peace or security[5], and the injury shall have been shown to four of the aforesaid twenty-five Barons, the said four Barons shall come to us, or to our Justiciary if we be out of the kingdom, and making known to us the excess committed, petition that we cause that excess to be redressed without delay[6].

    And if we shall not have redressed the excess, or, if we have been out of the kingdom, our Justiciary shall not have redressed it within the term of forty days [7], computing from the time when it shall have been made known to us, or to our Justiciary if we have been out of the kingdom, the aforesaid four Barons, shall lay that cause before the residue of the twenty-five Barons;

    and they, the twenty-five Barons, with the community of the whole land[8], shall distress and harass us by all the ways in which they are able[9]; that is to say, by the taking of our castles, lands, and possessions[10], and by any other means in their power..”

    The result is in the historical record. Privatised wars.
    Someone pointed out that with a strong monarch, disputes could have been settled without the series of bloodbaths that ensued.
    So the magna carta distributed power to an assortment of oligarchs who, due to the weakness of the monarchy would struggle for power.
    But this clause 61 is often omitted in the discussion.

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