Neuromorphics
There was a moment of silence, the kind that makes you hold your breath. And then the welcomed blaring of a newborn. Hand her to mom for a bit, then take her back to quickly scan her for weight and other biomarkers. The peachy glow of the neuromorphics tells that all’s well. Out goes the happy parents to Recovery and up goes the baby to Observation. Done.
As used as we are to them, people are often unclear as to what neuromorphics really do, they just don’t think about them much. But Andres knew something about them; in fact, he knew a whole lot because that was his job! In any case, people take them so for granted that we are not even aware that a lot of what we can do is thanks to the microscopic wonders in our brains and through our bodies.
Neuromorphics have come a long way from being electronic systems that reliably recognize and monitor high-frequency oscillations in real time. The thing that most people associate with them is that they made remote space construction possible. We can waldo objects in space thanks to a neuromorphics-enhanced network that starts at the perirhinal cortex and ends up modulating the activity of deep-layer pyramidal neurons in the primary somatosensory cortex. This, combined with quantum entanglement technology, have made the rapid advancement in Solar system habitations possible.
Whether you are in out in Solar habitats or Earth’s Surface, when you get on your AnchorMod much of the experience you get, and why it feels so real, is thanks to your neuromorphics: the sounds that washes over your body, the calm breeze that gently blows over your skin, the gale winds that give you goosebumps and makes your hair stand on end, the ebbing flow of heat from a fire. I bet you can’t even imagine AnchorMods without those capabilities, do you?
The technology started early in the century based on strontium-ruthenate oxide grown on strontium titanate oxide, but the technology moved very quickly since then. The neuromorphics in your body today are based on purely organic materials with the equivalent of magnetic anisotropy and the consistency of pudding. So much so, that our immune system can safely ignore it. We get them while in the womb and that’s why we just don’t think about them—not any more than we think about the other cells in our bodies.
Andres
The first time Andres had them turned off was really disorienting, even shocking. Luckily that’s something only a few trained people like him could do—it would be too much for most folks. In an impetuous, goofy moment, he had once turned off his date’s neuromorphics and she nearly passed out. She avoided him ever since.
Some people had them turned off long term as a choice, to be “off the grid,” so to speak. Most of them self-reported being on Surface, although some could be anywhere in the Solar system.
Andres was a neuro-bridge and his job was to stay in community with the neuro-off people, at least the ones who wanted to do it. He helped them when they needed the capabilities supported by the neuromorphics but still didn’t want the connectivity. On and off Surface this was becoming more and more difficult to sustain as humanity relied more and more on their neuromorphics and their increased capabilities. The small exclusively neuro-offs communities were like the Amish of the late 21st century: small and getting smaller.
Many years ago, when neuromorphics were going mainstream, there were cases of people who refused to have them posited into their unborn children, but that pretty much stopped as these children grew up and adopted neuromorphics as adults. They were, of course, never as fluent with them but it allowed them to embrace a technology that was good for humanity, with an off switch, and an enhanced sense of belonging. Neuromorphics are not “telepathy,” as in the old fantasy stories, but more like the ability to “read the room” in ways that are not possible without them.
Andres was neuro-bridge. He could go back and forth between having his neuromorphics on or off. Nevertheless, he could not keep them off for long. After a while even he would start to feel isolated and anxious. He never felt that sense of belonging with neuro-offs as he did with most people. In any case, the fact that he could turn them off without freaking out made him very good at bridging with neuro-off companies. In that role, Andres had always gotten enough RADs to live pretty comfy working with several neuro-off companies that leveraged their “quaint” popular image and made retro artifacts that people valued.
Neuropathology
Like everybody, Andres didn’t feel he had to dominate others as a way of protecting himself. It sounds strange to have to say that out loud today, but it needs to be said because we have mostly forgotten that it was not always the case. For most of recorded history, Western civilization has been based on dominance. Not that long ago, there was a systemic need to dominate people, ideas, customs, and even rituals. As recently as the start of the 21st, division and dominion were widespread and even celebrated; it had reached sociopathic levels and it was killing us.
As a primitive tool of survival, the impetus to dominate is still there. This is most obvious during childhood, but it is not encouraged by our present day culture. We learn that we can discover more opportunities and get what we really need with the cooperation of others. Every so often, someone tries to impose their way over others, but luckily for them, they are surrounded by people who are sensitive to that kind of behavior, are in the habit of speaking up, and know how to defend their autonomy. Our societies are supportive of this behavior and generally lean healthy today: decentralization and transparency as the norm changed all that, particularly in today’s version of schools.
Neuro-offs were more vulnerable to dominance because they couldn’t easily sense the impact of what they said or what they did, at least not as readily as neuro-ons. As a bridge, one of Andres’ jobs was to be on the lookout for this kind of behavior and to make the neuro-offs aware of it. Luckily, it rarely happened and it was always unintentional. More often than not, it happened when someone said something or acted in a way that caused lasting confusion or pain in others. In those cases, it was usually enough to point it out and help people learn alternative ways to act that got their message across while bringing others up, not down.
Neuro-ons normally can’t ignore the pain they create and is made palpable by their neuromorphics. This condition is worse than sociopathy and it is self-correcting because it is so painful. A sustained neuropath has been hypothesized, but there’s never been a reported case.
Dani
A new neuro-off, Dani, joined OffTech, one of the neuro-off companies that Andres is working with. During a get-to-know, part of the customary onboarding process, she talked about a bunch of things, including that her full name was Daniele, she was a second generation neuro-off on her father’s side but her mom was a neuro-on, and that she made the move because she wanted to socialize more with other neuro-offs. She also mentioned that issues were getting more difficult to resolve directly and they ended up depending on a few people to resolve “toxic tensions.” Because of that, more and more situations remained unresolved and their overall environment was getting toxic. After a bit, Andres left the get together and went to work on other stuff.
However, something about Dani’s comment kept coming back to him. Tensions were not that uncommon but normally they would not last for long and they would not fester to the point of becoming “toxic.” But what Andres found most surprising was her comment about “depending on a few people.”
Mostly out of curiosity, Andres spent more time with Dani a few days later. The more he talked with her, the more convinced he became that there was something very strange going on. Their neuro-bridge was, in fact, the person they went to to resolve problems but it sounded like he was doing things himself and not coaching people on how to resolve their own problems. Another thing that came out, and what really got his attention, is that the RADICAL Distributions were completely warped: a few people, including their neuro-bridge and a few other people, got systematically more than others for no particular reason, at least, no reason that Dani ever quite understood.
After Andres explained his concerns to Dani, she became concerned, too. She hadn’t realized how serious it sounded now that she had been away from it for a bit. A couple of months later, she volunteered to go back and find out more about what’s going on at her previous company, called Nexus. Both of them had a moment of hesitation, “what about transparency?” but they decided that they would let the Nexus folks know after they concluded their investigation and they would decide what to do about it, or not.
Iliana
Dani returned to Nexus with the excuse that she didn’t feel comfortable at her new place. It was a half truth and Daniele’s partner, Iliana, a neuro-on, helped her minimize the bad feelings that saying this brought up in her.
In fact, Iliana ended up joining Nexus, too. She is training as a neuro-bridge and when the “leaders” at Nexus offered her to join, she took them up on it. As a “reward” for Iliana joining, they gave Dani a bunch of RADs as a “reward.” Even stranger, these RADs came out of a “Leader Banner” which was definitely not a Banner and more like a stash of RADs that only “leaders” could give out. This was all very suspicious. Normally, RADs were allocated by peers, not “leaders,” and they were given as recognition for contributions, not as rewards.
The reward thing was obviously manipulative. Supposedly, Dani would now be “thankful” to the leaders for her reward and Iliana would feel “obligated” to try to fit in to make Dani happy. Under different circumstances she would have run away from Nexus at this point, but this was more like an experiment.
It had barely been three months since Dani left, her RADs were still yielding a good return, but Nexus was already stranger than when she left it. Whatever was going on at Nexus, it was moving pretty fast.
All’s Well
It didn’t take long for Dani and Iliana to find out that a neuro-on, Fenrir, and a neuro-off, Beria, were “adored” by the Nexus people who were so “appreciative,” you could say in awe, of their benevolence. It took them longer to figure out how it had come to pass.
The relationship between Fenrir and Beria and the rest of the company looks more like that of parents and small children even though they were grown ass adults. However, Iliana could barely feel any pain from them, more like discomfort. Dani could sense the repressed mood more easily just by looking at them: their body language, the hesitation, their veiled way of asking for permission to do just about anything.
They could understand how Beria could easily ignore the pain they had created, but they could not figure out how Fenrir managed to bear it. One night, Dani said, “What if Fenrir and Beria managed to desensitize each other?” That came out of the blue and all Iliana could do was make a WTF face? She could feel Dani’s exploding excitement, but she didn’t understand what was behind it.
“Look, the same way you helped me tone down my reaction to telling a few lies, maybe Beria helped Fenrir to ignore the feelings he got from his neuromorphics!”
They threw a few more ideas around, but Iliana was still not convinced. “Why not just turn off his neuromorphics altogether then?” She could sense the intense excitement coming from Dani.
“Because Fenrir would be completely out of control without them. He still would want to feel when his words and actions hit home, so to speak, just not be overwhelmed by it!”
“That is big-time-sick, Dani…”
“It probably didn’t happen all at once. They probably played with it and, y’know, one thing led to another. Look at how much pleasure they get from all the adoration they get. That would have been motivation enough to try to take it further, and further…”
“It is still big-time-sick. But plausible.” Then Iliana looked intensely at Dani and said, “Let’s test it.”
“How?”
“By helping me learn the same trick.”
As Iliana said that she felt the fear coming from Dani. Then came anger, actually more like fury. Iliana didn’t need her neuromorphics to know that Dani was sad but determined. She lifted her eyes and said, “OK. Let’s.”
Eventually, they validated that it was possible. They got to the point where Iliana and Dani found that in combination with other barriers that Iliana learned to put up, they, in combination, could distract Iliana’s neuromorphics and make them bearable. They stopped soon after that because Iliana could feel and Dani could sense the ill effect it was having on both of them.
A good side-effect of that work was that Dani and Iliana learned to help each other break out of the mood that crept over them every day at Nexus. Now it made more sense how the other neuro-offs had slowly succumbed to the oppressive mood and they were by now habituated to the feeling, it now felt “normal” to them.
Not Quite Ready
Dani and Iliana learned about an old technology called sonothermogenetics that, without causing any damage to the brain, could target any location in the brain with millimeter-scale resolution. As it turns out, hardware for it is installed in Off Pods to help Bridges learn to handle having their neuromorphics turned off. They can cancel electronic noise and that’s what makes Off Pods quiet. Neuro-bridges also use it later to calibrate how well they are blocking all electronic noise, including the neuromorphic hiss. The hardware delivers small bursts of heat via low-intensity focused ultrasound to the anterior hippocampus. The heat, only a few degrees warmer than body temperature, activates ion channels which basically makes their brain deaf to the electronic house.
Andres suggests that they reach out to Junior, a friend of his who repairs Off Pods. They describe their idea to Junior who then makes them two projectors out of spare parts that he’s rescued over time. The result is not the slickest, but the projectors work. With Junior’s help, they discover that when they aim the sonothermogenetics beams to people it, in effect, releases the neuro-offs’ suppressed frustration and anger. It helps them get out from under the mass depression they had fallen victim to.
Dani and Iliana use the technology to cover a fairly wide area and although it doesn’t work as perfectly as it does in the smaller Off Pods, it would be enough. Or so they thought.
Basic Instincts
It turned out that Junior’s contraption didn’t work as well as they had hoped. At least not on a couple of one neuro-offs, who ended up reporting them to Fenrir and Beria.
Before Dani could say anything, Iliana simply told them what they had noticed and why they were asking questions. Beria looked pretty upset, but Fenrir remained cool as far as Iliana could tell. Fenrir was sensing how upset Dani and Iliana were and was thinking of how to lower the temperature in the room when Beria bursted out with, “if you don’t like it here, you are welcome to leave. Of course, your RADs, all of them, will go dormant and you won’t receive any further dividends from them until you return. Oh, and since the hire-on bonus requires that Iliana stay with the company for 12 months, you’ll have to return that money, Dani.” Even though Dani’s livelihood was not anchored to Nexus, she did notice how resistant she was to let go of “her reward.” After their nightly deprogramming session Dani told Iliana about it and they were both surprised that so much fear had built up in them in such a short time.
We’re. Not. Alone.
In parallel to the work that Daniele and Iliana were doing, Andres stayed busy.
“Could this be the only case in existence? Could there be more!?” That’s the question that kept bouncing in Andres’ head and drove him to look for other companies with signs of neuropathy. Now he knew what to look for and was surprised by the number of cases he found, but he was really taken aback by how advanced some of them were. Nexus was definitely not alone.
He found companies that showed signs of transparency and collaboration breakdowns. He even found one in worse shape than Nexus, where violence had broken out, first as verbal abuse and then as head slaps and shoves. As in Nexus, the transformation had been gradual, but in all cases it was heading towards breaking people.
As Andres and the others would later find out, a few were well aware of it and liked it that way. Having a more authoritarian structure worked for them.
The Wheels Come Off
Now that Dani and Iliana were outed, they actually felt better. Andres felt better, too, because now they didn’t have to worry about not being transparent.
Some people gave them the cold shoulder and stopped giving them RADs altogether. Others, mostly neuro-offs, were less quick to ostracize them; in fact, they were curious as to why Dani and Iliana felt there was a problem. At first a few of them would agree to have them place the sonothermogenetic projectors nearby. And then they understood how much they had been holding back and acting like children. After the first few, it didn’t take long for the other neuro-offs to come out from under their mass depression. The neuro-ons felt their “awakening” as a sudden, intense, negative wave that washed over them. They had never experienced this before and it affected them deeply. Most of them had to sit or lay down and a few even passed out.
Even Fenrir was affected by the overwhelming feelings. Of all, Beria was the least affected, probably because he was aware of what was happening all along and his neuromorphics remained turned off as always. What did affect him was the effect he saw in Fenrir. Despite their growing spats, Fenrir and Beria were friends and seeing the pain in his friend’s face felt like a punch to his gut.
Tragic, how it all had started out as an experiment driven by a vague, naïve sense of nostalgia for a time they had never experienced—anemoia. Unfortunately, wielding power over others soon morphed into more of an addiction for them. Now Beria could see, all at once, the effect it had had on Fenrir and the damage that they had done to others.
A New Role
Long-term neuropaths were still rare, but they existed. This was no longer a hypothetical condition and Nexus was clear evidence of that.
Diana and Iliana found themselves spending more and more time training Bridges on how to recognize it and how to resist it. The requests started to come in from the companies that Andres had identified, but as these cases became better known, other communities didn’t want to be caught with their pants down were it ever to happen to them. They, along with other people from Nexus, found themselves completely dedicated to this work, which included simulating for the neuro-ons what neuropathology felt like. As they did that, they established a support network to deal with potential cases in the future.
Even self-correcting systems go over the edge sometimes. Like other forms of love, you have to work at it to preserve it.
