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"I received a nice letter the other day from the Dalai Lama. He had read 'The Nine Billion Names of God'. It is about a computer at a Tibetan monastery."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Betrization | ||
| An in utero method of reducing human aggression. |
In the novel, a future society is made easier to govern by reducing the level of aggression in people before they are born.
| Betrization acted on the developing prosencephalon at an early stage in life by means of a group of proteolytic enzymes. The effects were selective: the reduction of aggressive impulses by 80 to 88 percent in comparison with the nonbetrizated; the elimination of the formation of associative links between acts of aggression and the sphere of positive feelings; a general 87-percent reduction in the possibility of accepting personal risk in life.
Betrization causes the disappearance of aggression through the complete absence of command, and not by inhibition. |
| From Return from the Stars,
by Stanislaw Lem. Published by Not known in 1961 Additional resources -
|
Interestingly, this technique also resulted in a society that lacked true innovation and free thinking.
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'I'm afraid to tell you this Mr. Quaid, but you have suffered a schizoed embolism...'
'It drew its power from six square yards of sunpower screens on its low curved roof.'
'...lifted themselves to skimming flight upon whirling helicopters."
'Twenty rocket tugs towed it from its Earth hangar out into space.'
I don't need it to go fast, it just needs to amble along.
'The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time, subtly smoothing, deleting and coloring.'
