REACTIVEradio

According to Yahoo, a man has been brought out of a six-year-long vegetative state simply by electrodes that doctor’s placed in his brain.  Not only is he awake in the most basic of senses in that his eyes are open and he is responding to stimuli, but he can talk with family, watch movies, and even play cards.
I get depressed sometimes when I look at the world around me; all I see are people who are killing each other for not good reason, people stealing from each other for no other reason than greed, and I see people who are just terrible to each other in every other way imaginable.  Though, when I read this story, I had a huge grin on my face because it means that there truly are people out there who just want to make life better for others.

The company, Medtronic, developed the implant originally for Parkinson’s patients, but when tested on this coma patient, they found that if they very slightly upped the voltage over time, it would stimulate the right parts of the brain enough to bring him out of a vegetative state.  I know that critics are going to argue “Oh, well if they’re really doing this for the good of the people, they should offer it for free, or not make so much profit,” but unfortunately for those critics, they use those same economic principals (read: capitalism) when they meet with their manager for their performance review/raise, or when they’re searching for a new job.   Companies charge more, and they (usually) pay their employees more as a result.

At any rate, back to the original point of this article.   I think it’s fucking amazing that we have enough knowledge that we can attach wires to someone’s brain and bring them back to consciousness.  I mean, I want you to honestly think about that for a second.  50 years ago, hysteria was considered a form of mental incapacity.  20 years ago, brain surgery was still in it’s infant form of what it is today.  And today, we’re zapping people’s brains with electricity to bring them back to life.

Goddammit, I want a Frankenstein of my own.