The Happy Switch

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine for a second that you had the power to control your happiness. Much like a volume dial, imagine that you can turn up and down your feelings of well-being, happiness and content as easily as changing the volume on your TV.

Ian. M. Banks, the late author of the amazingly intricate science fiction novels 'The Culture' envisioned a post-scarcity society that was far from the problems of current day earth. A society that was without material issues that plague the average humans. A civilisation so far abstracted from what we know, where feelings of despair and depression were often a choice.

Each of the citizens of 'The Culture' is genetically engineered to be the picture of health and beauty with organs that can dispense a wide variety of narcotics and stimulants at a whim, merely by thinking about it. With supreme compassionate leadership from Artifical Super Intelligences called 'Minds' far beyond what humans could comprehend there is no need to work unless it was of personal interest to any of the billions of Culture inhabitants.

I recently read an article about a lady that only knew depression. Every type of cognitive behavioural therapy and an extreme slue of drugs could not shake the perpetual malaise that this poor soul suffered every day.

It wasn't until a new therapy was introduced where electrodes were inserted into her brain and different voltages were used to simulate a part of the brain that acts as an epicentre of mood.

Despite this technology being a wonderful tribute to human ingenuity it wasn't the technology itself that amazed me. It was that, in some cases, it worked far too well and in one particular case Drs had to turn down the voltage as the procedure resulted in the patient's mood being too elevated. The patient asked why they couldn't leave it up all the way and the Drs said it wasn't natural to be so perpetually happy.

If you are curious about the process and the results watch this video. Be aware it may be a little disturbing for some readers. Deep Brain Stimulation for Depression

So this is where I would like to present a question. If you had a switch that you could turn on happiness would you use it? If this technology was as socially acceptable as a haircut, non-invasive and affordable how many people would employ it? Would you?

With a world that is steaming towards AI superiority, it is hard not to think about the horrible scene from the matrix with machines probing brains to evoke emotional responses.

With the exponential progression of technology, there is no end in sight for the amazing technological advances that the human race will make. Right there alongside these epic technological advances are going to be epic ethical quandaries.

So, short story long. If you had a happy switch how often would you turn it on?