- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
image transcript
screenshot of this bluesky post (which you can read without logging in here) from @comraderobot.bsky.social (“Notorious RBMK”) saying:
my friend who still lives in palo alto gave me permission to share this mailer he got.
there’s unhinged and then there’s tech unhinged
image in post has two photos of people wearing EEG electrodes, one xray of a human head, an EEG data plot over a silhouette of a head, and this text:
REM sleep is the next Al
The upcoming era of physical reality integrated with dream worlds advanced by the REMspace startup
- Controlling a smart home from dreams
- Transferring speech from dreams
- Controlling virtual cars from dreams
- Interacting with dream worlds using brain implants
- Social media for sharing dream journals
- Smart sleep masks powered by Al
- Many other breakthroughs from our lab (videos and tech)
Don’t miss the pitch of the year for potential partners and investors
Aug 29th Palo Alto
Above the image is an (inaccurate) BlueSky label saying “Possible tumblr screenshot” with a “hide” button.
–
the guy behind this startup:
- (CW bloody photos) “I confirm the information published in the Daily Mail. On May 17, 2023, I performed by myself trepanation, electrode implantation, and electrical stimulation of my brain’s motor cortex. I needed it to test brain stimulation during lucid dreaming”
- https://www.newsweek.com/russian-implants-chip-brain-control-dreams-hospital-1814256
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The intrusion of capitalism into sleep is a final frontier of absolute exploitation. Why work 8 hours a day when you can work 24 hours a day? Why use vast banks of computer servers to run AI models when you can capture the most efficient and powerful ‘computer’ to ever exist: the human brain. Why provide for housing and recreation when you can lock people in permanent dream states, where they can provide intellectual labor and live in dreamworlds while their physical brain is kept alive through an IV drip.
I am skeptical that any technology trying to directly interface with the slumbering subconscious could work, but I have no doubt that such attempts would be damaging to human health, and would be used to push material imiseration to impossible heights.
The OP did not explicitly call for exploitation of workers, but this is a possibility in Capitalism when a few rich property owning oligarch use their hoarded resources to rig the market incentive system of reward and punishment.
did not explicitly call for exploitation of workers
When did
ever show restraint for long? The exploitation of workers is a given because the number must always go up.
Its been like this for a while, in my state its totally legal for you to close at 1am and then open at 5am the following day. If people truly, truly knew the value of sleep on health and function they’d go full prole revolt in a week. All the horrors one can come up for capital are either in place or so nascent one barely notices.
Anyway, as this is right now is just another technobro grift.
Its been like this for a while, in my state its totally legal for you to close at 1am and then open at 5am the following day.
I’ve done that shit before, called “clopening” to make it sound cute and fun instead of the often-punitive experience it actually is. Asshole bosses did it to people they hated.
I think that material interfacing with the human subconscious could and should work. I imagine potential applications could be for improving quality of sleep, inducing lucid dreaming, or possibly allowing for physical exercise while unconscious.
I imagine potential applications
You didn’t, or refuse to, imagine likely applications under the current economic system which include even more surveillance and data harvesting, economically coerced “optimization” where people that don’t use the technology are marginalized, and even more decay of overall quality of life because even sleep becomes an exploitable resource for the ruling class.
I would rather not.
Ignorance truly is bliss, isn’t it? Just keep dreaming about the tech treats and willfully ignore what capitalism will do with them at the first opportunity.
“Doctor, you have to help me! I keep having this dream where I’m a car, but I’m always just stuck in traffic!”
‘Ah yes, the meaning here is quite clear…’
“Is it because of my subconscious dissatisfaction with the meaningless, repetitive grind that my life has become in this techno-hell dystopia?”
‘No no no, nothing like that. It just means you need to pony up the $15.99 monthly to upgrade your REM Ember’s subscription out of Serf Tier.’
This is just Mr. Beast with Squid Game
I remember a very long time ago reading this guy’s blog where he detailed his experiments with polyphasic sleeping schedules. Dude claimed he slept only a couple hours a day, in 20-30 minute increments every 4 hours or something. At the time I just thought it sounded wild and like a kind of cool idea.
Now I just remember how he said it gave him more time to work, which makes me sad.That sleeping style is known as the Da Vinci method, as he was the one who purportedly popularized it. The schedule has been thoroughly studied, and the conclusion is that a human being could not sustain such a sleeping method since mental, physical, emotional, and mental degradation and damage begins to wreck havoc incredibly quickly, and will cause lasting harm that negates any of the purported benefits.
I feel like I heard of some method that is long enough to get through a REM cycle but also relatively short like 1:30-3:00 hour increments or something. But it’s been years, so I could be remembering wrong. I wonder how that would compare to this thing of 20-30 minute increments. On the face of it, it seems like the 2nd would be a disaster because of not giving sufficient time to get into REM sleep.
This is on-the-nose enough to be a Black Mirror episode jesus christ
My dreams stay between me and myself, thank you very much. I don’t want some tech company knowing which fictional character I’m kissing lol
Imagine LinkedIn… for dreaming. Your future job and job security may depend on having optimized dreams that are productive for the ruling class.
Hey if they wanna see my grandpa slowly become teeth they’re welcome to it.
CYBERPUNK BRAINDANCE
Get ready for hypnospace
Original Cyberpunk 2020 rpg game that came in 1988 had that sidebar bit about people lending their brains (physically) for 5 years to became cybersoldiers, and that was presented as hyper dehumanising.
This seemed obviously fake, but…it’s real.
Sometimes, the techbro apologism comes from inside the thread.
I am gonna go anarcho primitive
Live Forever As You Are Now but shittier. Controlling a virtual car better mean that they have a proprietary play-to-earn crypto scam where you roleplay as an uber driver.
For the low low cost of only $500 a month, REMspace will stop sending sleep paralysis demons to coerce you into upgrading from the free to use version.
Actually if I remember it’s even worse: they can now use your brain waves from your sleep to make you do certain actions.
Like you could work/be productive while sleeping.
I wonder if
will have any restraint or hesitation to turn the masses into puppets during what was once the only real time they had to themselves? 
