As I was browsing through my media feed the other day, I learned that researchers have discovered that administering an “electrical impulse” to the front and back of the brain makes people more willing to give money to strangers. The researcher behind the study says this might be handy for those with “brain disorders” who have “profound problems with social behavior.”

An immediate question comes to my mind: How is the “profundity” of such problems measured? We might well agree that true psychopaths—people who simply cannot empathize at all with others and are therefore predisposed to harming them—might benefit from such a treatment. But it is also easy to imagine suggestions to alter the parameters of what constitutes “profound problems with social behavior,” given the right (that is, a progressive) moral compass.

How difficult is it to imagine an authority suggesting this might be useful for application beyond the limits of those who are clinically unwell—to the general population, as it were—you know, just to ensure everyone is on board with the need for broad social redistribution efforts? Especially at this time of year, tax season, it would be mighty useful for the government to have access to a reliable means of reducing my desire to keep my own money and increasing my willingness to give it away to others I don’t know so that they can spend it on progressive social programs about which they have not consulted me.

Of course, getting the broad social effects we want from such a technique would require regular therapy, says the author of the study:

“To really change behaviour in the longer term, you would have to do it repeatedly,” Prof Ruff said. He compared the potential effects to going to the gym. One workout will not improve your fitness, “but if you go to the gym twice weekly for a period of two months, your body changes. This is the same.”

Prof. Ruff might consider a career in advertising if he decides to leave the medical field. He is already thinking about how to effectively package this new personality adjustment technique for the public. Just like going to the gym! No pain, no gain! Come on, comrades, a little more effort to make our social utopia!

The first question I had while reading about this was not about specifics, but rather about the motivation that led scientists to produce a finding like this in the first place. Are scientists these days just randomly applying “electrical impulses” to human brains to see what effects are produced? Why are they doing this?

And is this ethical? What’s the difference between an “electrical impulse” and an “electric shock”? There is, after all, a long and egregious history of using electric shock on human subjects to change the brain and alter behavior. Readers in the same broad age range as me will vividly remember the harrowing sequence in which R. P. McMurphy is subjected to electroshock in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We are still doing “electroconvulsive therapy” that produces seizures in subjects with depression and other psychopathologies. This, despite the fact that a significant number of those undergoing such therapy experience some memory loss.

How can we be assured that, at some point, interventions such as this one will not be mobilized by improperly motivated practitioners with the same kinds of justifications?

A very unfortunate side effect of cases like this is that they provide examples reasonably added to the collection, indicating that the scientific establishment should be viewed with great skepticism. Clearly, there is evidence that woke politics too often either orients scientific research or determines some of its applications, or both. The modern public certainly has a responsibility to endeavor to critically evaluate what the scientists are up to. The problem is that most in the public are unsuited for doing that in a morally and intellectually responsible manner. Unfortunately, egregious examples like this one have the effect of poisoning the well and making people even more skeptical of legitimate scientific pursuits.

This is yet one more reason to despise the progressive radicals with PhDs who are contributing to making contemporary life such a moral and ethical mess.