Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
 |
| Droud | ||
| A transformer to step down house current for the wire providing current directly to the pleasure center of the brain. |
This is one of the more insidious pieces of technovelgy that you are likely to run into. The design is simplicity itself; The part you can see is just a "fist-sized droud that protruded like a black plastic canker from the crown of [the user's] head."
| A small black cylinder protruded from the top of his head. An electric cord trailed from the top of the cylinder and ran to a wall socket.
The cylinder was a droud, a current addict's transformer. ...The droud was a standard make, but it had been altered. Your standard current addict's droud will pass only a trickle of house current into the brain. |
| From Death by Ecstasy,
by Larry Niven. Published by Galaxy Magazine in 1969 Additional resources -
|
A droud provides the current; the business end of the droud is inserted into an ecstasy plug embedded in the skull.
Here's a quote from a later book, Ringworld Engineers:
Times change. Generations later, these same cultures usually see current addiction as a mixed blessing. Older sins -- alcoholism and drug addiction and compulsive gambling -- cannot compete. People who can be hooked by drugs are happier with the wire. They take longer to die, and they tend not to have children.
It costs almost nothing. An ecstasy peddler can raise the price of the operation, but for what? The user isn't a wirehead until the wire has been embedded in the pleasure center of his brain. Then the peddler has no hold over him, for the user gets his kicks from house current...
Louis seemed to sag in upon himself. He reached across his smooth scalp to the base of the long black braid, and pulled the droud from its socket beneath the hair. He held it in his hand, considering; then, as always, he dropped it into a drawer and locked it.
Fortunately, no one really knows the precise place to insert the wire; also, the operation itself would be expensive, and keeping the site of the incision clean would be difficult.
The author remarks that
More recently, the Vagal Nerve Stimulator (manufactured by Cyberonics Inc), sends a mild electrical pulse to the vagus nerve (10th cranial nerve), which stimulates regions of the brain believed to control emotions. The device, originally designed to help patients with epilepsy (and approved by the FDA for this purpose), is now being proposed for use with patients with otherwise untreatable depression.
Compare to the pleasure cap from Cordwainer Smith's 1961 novel A Planet Named Shayol.
Current addiction is the youngest of mankind's sins. At some time in their histories, most of the cultures of human space have seen the habit as a major scourge. It takes users from the labor market and leaves them to die of self-neglect.
Incidentally, droud was a typographical error I kept making for "crowd," as the shisp in hachiroph shisp was a typo for "ships."
On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that (regulated) electrical stimulation of certain parts of the brain may offer hope to people who suffer from chronic mental illness. What was apparently the world's first brain pacemaker was installed in 1976; it delivers timed stimulation to the cerebellum and resulted in a great improvement for the patient.
The Words in Science Fiction
Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Death by Ecstasy
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven
Tech news articles related to Death by Ecstasy
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven
Droud-related
news articles:
- Brain 'Pacemaker' For Depression Sufferers
- Neural Implant Technology Needs To Improve
- Erotic Sensation Self-Stimulation Via Brain Implants
| Microsoft Patents Immersive Display |
| Zero Gravity Roller Coaster Coming |
| Basement Holodeck With Playstation Move And EyeToy |
| Sifteo Tiles |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'... A vast complex electronic organism buried deep in the ground.'
'Copseyes floated overhead... each a sonic stunner... they were there to enforce the law...'
'It was not a large office, but it was quite spy-proof and quite undetectably so.'
When you hear that music, you know you're in for adventure - and predictions of possible technological futures!
'Vergil had trained the lymphocytes in the past six months to interact as much as possible with each other and with their environment...'
'This was really free power... Power carried across millions of miles on Addison's tight-beam principle.'
