Friday, August 13, 2004
Procrastination Zombies
Over on futurepundit, there's an article that states that scientists have discovered a gene in monkleys that regulates the connection between reward and the amount of work that the monkey is willing to do before receiving said reward. By tweaking the gene, the scientists were able to turn the monkeys into PhD students. (I kid. Kinda.)
Randall speculates that in the near future there will be a drug you could take to give yourself an extra boost to complete a long project. [ed - Don't we have that now and isn't that called caffeine? - Yeah or speed.] Presumably a viral agent will serve as a vector for introducing this anti-procrastination gene.
Of course there's all sorts of potential issues with such an approach. Randall notes the possiblity of corporations drugging their workers to make them more productive.
That's all well and good. But do you know what I'm scared of? I'm afraid that they'll find the gene for monkey rage and turn it into a virus. Or maybe that's because I was watching 28 Days Later last night, an excellent and beautifully filmed zombie movie. [ed - I didn't think beautifully filmed and zombie movie belonged together. - In this case they do. The shots of a deserted Britain are breathtaking.] To give it a little alcohol tie-in, I was drinking zombies while watching 28 Days Later.
I figure a gene that can be engineered to be turned on can also be engineered to be turned off. So if Randall's scientists and the 28 Days Later scientists can get together, then we could really have something - procrastination zombies. They're full of rage and willing to bite someone's head off, but they're just too darn lazy to do anything about it.
Continuing the permutations, we could also get a drug that creates procrastinating peacenik zombies. Oh wait, we already have that. It's called THC. But it has a side effect. The procrastinating peacenik zombies get the munchies. For BRAINS!! Or Doritos. Whatever's easier, cause, dude, they're baked and it's just not worth the effort.
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Randall speculates that in the near future there will be a drug you could take to give yourself an extra boost to complete a long project. [ed - Don't we have that now and isn't that called caffeine? - Yeah or speed.] Presumably a viral agent will serve as a vector for introducing this anti-procrastination gene.
Of course there's all sorts of potential issues with such an approach. Randall notes the possiblity of corporations drugging their workers to make them more productive.
That's all well and good. But do you know what I'm scared of? I'm afraid that they'll find the gene for monkey rage and turn it into a virus. Or maybe that's because I was watching 28 Days Later last night, an excellent and beautifully filmed zombie movie. [ed - I didn't think beautifully filmed and zombie movie belonged together. - In this case they do. The shots of a deserted Britain are breathtaking.] To give it a little alcohol tie-in, I was drinking zombies while watching 28 Days Later.
I figure a gene that can be engineered to be turned on can also be engineered to be turned off. So if Randall's scientists and the 28 Days Later scientists can get together, then we could really have something - procrastination zombies. They're full of rage and willing to bite someone's head off, but they're just too darn lazy to do anything about it.
Continuing the permutations, we could also get a drug that creates procrastinating peacenik zombies. Oh wait, we already have that. It's called THC. But it has a side effect. The procrastinating peacenik zombies get the munchies. For BRAINS!! Or Doritos. Whatever's easier, cause, dude, they're baked and it's just not worth the effort.
Comments(0) |
