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"I do think there is a link in that in both cases, writing fiction or writing a computer program, at any given moment you're focusing on a very specific and particular thing—one word, one line of code, whatever."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Analogue Treatment | ||
| Hypnotic drug treatment that normalizes behavior in humans. |
| 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 -
|
This treatment has been applied to everyone:
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.
"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."
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