RE: Self-governance and self-control: Re-chipping the mind
The very thought of having an implant to control my thinking is abhorrent.
Someone, somewhere will make the decision about what and how I will be modified, and it may work perfectly, making me a model citizen.
Someone, somewhere else will see the possibility for making other, more nefarious changes to modify society to their mold. The new implant will be promised to do all sorts of good things for you that everyone accepts happily. And then the other algos kick in and the new human sheep will love their new rulers and their new society and everyone else forever.
No, thank you. We figure it out without the mind control, and even though that is not the intention, it is human nature to turn the solution into a weapon. If it can be done, someone will do it.
Over-consumption, violence, polarization, religious brainwashing, oppression, degradation, unnecessary poverty, profiteering from suffering.... aren't we already under mind control to accept such things, to partake in them?
Yes, we are currently mind controlled in such ways. However it is an external mind control so there is room to conceive it and overcome it. Once an implant controls your thoughts your ability to recognize the control is essentially removed. Freedom of thought is removed and therefore you are no longer human.
I would argue (for the sake of arguing) that external/internal difference is a technical difference only as in practice, if we are programmed to act without conscious control, we are essentially acting robotically anyway. Does it matter if the chip is held in our head or in the device in our hands if we are so compelled we are unable to put it down anyway?
All true, however....
As long as we are capable of free thought, there is the possibility that we can realize that we do not like what is being imposed and can act to change it. Any procedure or device that can control human behavior will be sought after by demogogues to be used as a weapon. In limited, targeted use, of course benefits could be realized, but it is not human nature to stop with that.
As for your list, many of us have made a conscious decision to opt out of supporting those ideas. Had we been injected with nanobots at birth, our free will could have been replaced for any long list of "needed" behaviors and we would not even question why we had an unending appetite for Soylent Green and supporting the Universal Brotherhood political party.
At the top, of course, would be the One Percent who did not need the treatment so they could make our decisions for us.